IT’S that time again. It comes round every two or three months and is guaranteed to bring a frown to your face.

Yes it’s the international break.

Football as we know and need it stops for a fortnight and there are the same old moans, groans and debates about why it happens.

The bigger question is what do you do when your routine is broken by England for some reason having to play San Marino or the Independent Republic of Smalland (don’t both Googling, I made that one up)?

There’s no doubt the international break is way past its sell-by date in modern football.

Why the top international teams still have to prove they are better than the smaller not-as-good nations is antiquated and daft.

Take Europe for example. There are 13 places at next year’s World Cup for European teams [including Russia who have pre-qualified as hosts), and there’s not a person alive with any football nous who wouldn’t be able to pick most of who’ll be filling those slots every four years.

England, Holland, France, Germany, Spain and Italy are pretty much nailed on to reach the World Cup finals every time. So why bother making them go through the motions of playing meaningless games against the likes of Gibraltar, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Azerbaijan, San Marino, Faroe Islands, Latvia, Andorra, Lithuania and Malta?

It’s even more stupid with the European Championships where every team is from Europe yet the elite ones still have to spend 18 months routinely whipping the little guys to qualify.

It’s like Liverpool, Manchesters United and City, Chelsea and Arsenal having to play Bury and Rochdale to qualify to play in the Premier League.

The Premier League wouldn’t be any good without the big clubs, and in the same way the World Cup and European Championships need the best countries there or there’s no point having them.

The upshot is non-tournament international football is irrelevant to all but the most hardcore supporters of national teams, which is not very many people compared to the number interested in domestic football.

It lost its meaning a long time ago and the only way to bring it back is to make matches relevant again.

So, instead of Germany v Gilbraltar in a non-event it should be Germany v England in a game that matters.

If I ran football there would be no international breaks.

The domestic season in the top leagues in Europe would run gap-free throughout the season.

That would allow it to either finish a few weeks earlier or allow a winter break or clubs to officially go on brand-building tours of the Far East instead of having to cram them into a hectic schedule.

Every other summer when there wasn’t a World Cup or European Championships there would be mini-tournaments between the top nations.

We get break-free domestic football, no more meaningless internationals and competitive games between the top countries every other summer.

You can vote for me as president on the FIFA website!