Saw today that the FIFA president wants to expand the World Cup in 2022 to 48 teams http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43750266 Not sure what to make of this personally. Yes like every other football fan I love the World Cup and so the prospect of a longer tournament does sound tempting, but the World Cup for me should be the best teams in the world from each region and it should be tough to qualify for. Adding more teams makes it easier to get to and will mean more lower end teams in there which will ruin it a little maybe.
I think the recent expansion did more than enough to make the tournament accessible for slightly smaller countries, and taking it one step further would undermine the quality of the WC. For lots of people, the WC is the only football they watch, and so we want to give them a good impression- in the hopes that they become more regular viewers! Somehow I don’t think viewers of Lithuania v Moldova are going to want to watch much more football post WC…
This is so true, it is great to have a few underdog stories in the World Cup each year like Panama this year and Costa Rica that did well last time but having more lower end teams will just undermine the whole thing as you said.
It means fifa can make more money advertising and selling stuff in more countries and surely that's all that matters....
With Europe having more places than the whole of both Africa and Asia you mean..... Quite happy for the expansion as the professionalism of African and Asian Leagues improve but at the minute I agree most of them seem a bit tin pot.
We do have more places but we also have most of the best nations as well as the most watched leagues which of course aids the national teams to improve. As you say it could be viable to expand if the quality of Football over there improves but as of now there are a lot of 'Tinpot' clubs in those regions as well as a lot of low level clubs in Europe of course too.
It will hardly be worth having a qualification process. It will be difficult to not qualify. Even Scotland might make it.
I'm sure they could create a fair forumulae linked to attendance at football matches or TV audiences for domestic leagues. Once a country has a league system - three leagues of 15 teams say - average of 10,000 fans per match / season ticket holders per club - and / or 5% of the nation watching the match on telly that counts as 1 "Global Point" which represents a domestic league of a certain standard. Each Continental association tallies their "Global points" and places in the world cup finals are awarded pro-rata before any qualifying campaign - then as the global number of "Global Points" grows and by implication the global interest and quality of the game increases then the number of places in the finals increases, It would also put a measureable KPI on the regional associations to develop the game and attendance rather than just a few super clubs - like we;re seeing in the US and China.
They’re full of ****, like the time they all rolled out the party line that an African side will win it in the next 5 world cups. It will never happen, ever, ever.
I'm a football fan but I've now got no interest in the WC whatsover. I didn't always feel like this - I wonder what's changed? Mmmmm, let me think........
We go down that route, and how long before the smaller countries are struggling to be allowed in for being too small, like Belgium, Costa Rica, Iceland, Serbia, Portugal, Panama, Switzerland, Croatia and Denmark.
I love the World Cup. Watch every match I can get my hands on but then start to lose interest when it gets to the Quarters and the usual suspects are left in. I think the problem is that back in the 60s, 70s and 80s the South American and European sides still seemed exotic. Now they're just full of so and so's who play for Chelsea and City or Real Madrid etc who you see on tv or hear about week in week out. Mundane.
FIFA and fair are both four letter words which contain the letters F, A, and I. Beyond that I'm struggling to make a connection.
Surely theres too much money to be made from Qualifying to make this viable. Although I wouldnt put it past em to run "qualifying" groups where every bugger "qualifies"