FIFA Keeps It At 32...

[Chief Rum]

...Just seeking thoughts on FIFA's decision to keep the teams participating in the World Cup at 32.

FIFA Sticks With 32 (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/2003/06/28/fifa_meeting/)

I was disappointed in how this was done, and I am an advocate of going to a 36-team system, as was proposed by South America.

How hard would it be to just add a ninth group? The FIFA guys talked about organizational problems, but they even turned down talk of doing this for 2010. 2010! Seven years away!

I just think this is idiocy. The quality of soccer is clearly improving at a fast rate in areas other than Europe, but FIFA seems unwilling to advance past its European base and that is disappointing to me.

I think that South America should be given a fifth team, North America/Central America a fourth team, Oceana a guaranteed berth, and then a playoff for a sixth African team/fifth Asian team.

Actually, truth be told, I would like the lower end European spots (they get 14 now, which actually is down from 15 in 2002) be up for grabs in playoffs. If that were the case, I would have Europe's 13th team face off with Africa's sixth team, and Europe's 14th team face off with Asia's fifth team.

I don't believe that any European spots at all are up for grabs in playoffs, as there is now for North/Central America, Asia and Oceania. Given that almost half the field is European, I would think it would be within the realm of reason to force at least the bottom two of the European berths to a playoff. If European football is so superior (and mind you, I don't deny that the best football is played in Europe), then let at least a couple of the lower teams actually have to beat a non-European country for the rights to that berth.

Also, basically FIFA awarded Oceania the berth, and then awarded it back to South America (or basically reversed its decision). I think it's a load of crock to treat an entire region like that, and I completely understand why the Tonga representative (the only Oceania member on the Executive Council) and the president of Oceania's football association walked out of that meeting.

BTW, as long as I am talking soccer, there's a reasonable chance CM would come up. And, Marc Vaughan, if you're reading, I wanted to tell you I think that you got some Nazis running the moderation of your community forums, and the level of fanboyism there is virtually intolerable--even worse than OOTP's forums were in their "golden" days.

The complete lockdown on opinion there is appalling to me. It makes me thankful for this forum all the more. BTW, this isn't pointing a finger at you (I think you're wonderful :) ), but I just thought I would mention it to you since you work for the same bums that put some of those guys in charge. :)

Chief Rum

[Blackadar]

The CM forums have always been a problem.

[oykib]

Knowing a lot of Aussies, I think the Oceania thing is a problem. I think the solution is to make Oceania a part of the asia group and give Asia one more guarunteed slot.

Honestly, it's unfair to give Oceania a slot right now because you are basically giving the slot to Australia/New Zealand. There are only two legitamate teams in the whole region.

I don't think any team should have a 50/50 chance to get in based on region. But there also may come a year where they both deserve to get in and only one possibly can.

[RPI-Fan]

How would you "just" add a 9th group?

What do you do for the elimination round?

[tucker342]

Very good question...

It is unfair how much they favor Europe, I agree that the last two to make it in Europe should have to take on someone from another group to prove that they deserve to get in, also to give another team a chance...

[ice4277]

I think they made the right decision to stick with 32 teams; it would be nice to think another team from Asia or Africa or two could get in, but c'mon, seriously, they favor Europe for a reason: its because Europe, top to bottom, has the best soccer-playing nations! Remember the performances put on by Saudi Arabia and China at the last World Cup? Probably not, because they were pretty damn forgettable. I think it would be a joke to add more teams from these regions, or the North American region, at this time. Who would the fourth team from North America have been last time? Jamaica? They would have gotten rocked. Not to mention it would make for a very convoluted process to determine the final round of 16. As for Oceania, they never deserved a spot of their own. It's a region whose winner, 9 times out of 10, Australia, can't even beat the fifth-placed team in South America to qualify normally. And even calling that region a two-horse race is generous, as the quality of New Zealand soccer is far below that of Australia, at least at international level.

[21C]

When Oceania was granted automatic admission, a lot of the press here in Australia made it out to be as good as Sydney getting the Olympics. Australia could not even get past New Zealand to get to the Confederations Cup.

Besides, if Australia were to get automatic qualification then it would not get adequate preparation for the World Cup from beating up on the likes of Fiji, Tonga and the Solomon Islands. The Oceania champions should be in a playoff with other countries to prove their worthiness.

[MIJB#19]

36 teams would create an impossible tournament schedule.

9 groups of 4 teams?
That's even worse then the old 6 gr. of 4, with 4 3rd placed "wild card" teams.
That would scream for a second group phase, which would lead to an 8 or 9 rounds tournament (including each round robin round).

6 groups of 6 teams?
That's 5 group matches.
Who should advance?
Group winners and 2 best runners-up? That's an 8-game tournament. Going with top 2 and 4 3rd placed teams would lead to a 9-game schedule.

4 groups of 9?
Not even an option.

12 groups of 3?
That's a 2-game group phase.
And then what?
Another group phase with 4 groups of 3 would be an option.
The top teams would play semi finals. But FIFA would never do that, it would lead to a tournament schedule of just 36+12+4=52 games. That's a downgrade compared to the current 48+16=64 games.
My problem is that most tournament (except full knockout tournaments) try to get the best 2 teams in the final round and with this system, the best 2 could play each other in the first round.
Let the top 2 advance in the first group phase!
Is a good option, leading to 24 teams advancing. Continuing with groups of 8x3 or 6x4. Then the group winners (and 2 best runners-up in 6x4) could advance to the quarter finals. This would lead to an 8-game tournament for the finalists.

An additional knockout round?
Not an option, the world cup has a group phase history to give teams a 3-game chance to show themselves to the world. Besides, that would also lead to a smaller schedule and that's not FIFA approvable (sp?).

A last option?
Swiss system.
Swiss? Isn't the FIFA headquarters located in Switzerland?
Yes. Though, with swiss system I mean the system where all participants go into one big group and play opponents based on result over the tournament.
My idea would be to "eliminate" teams after 3 rounds and on based on the rankings at that point. Start with 36 playing 3 games. After that, let the top 20, 24 or 28 play another round. Then continue with 12 or 16 teams. Optionally continue with 8 teams. In the end the top 4 or 8 (or 16) could play in a knockout.
Sadly, this would also lead to an 8-game tournament, which is just too much. It would also be very hard to schedule the games in the 2nd and 3rd group phase rounds with opponents drawn after the first round and an option would be to pre-draw all 3 rounds, but then this system could be easily replaced by 9 groups of 4 teams and see the best teams with some "wold cards" advance to the last 16.

FIFA has thus far said 40 would never occur, but I don't believe that. Besides, 40 is much better workable then 36.

What remains is searching for an option to play with 35 teams in stead of 36...:)

[Chief Rum]

Hmmm...well, I like oykib's idea of adding a fifth Asian team and merely tossing in Oceania with Asia. That makes sense to me. That way, Australia or New Zealand don't get automatic bids (because of being the only big countries in the region), but they both get a shot to get in if they are good.

But I think it's wrong that FIFA voted to allow Oceania a full berth, and then a few months later, they just ditch it and go back to the old ways. I think a 36-team World Cup would have eased things considerably.

As for how to turn 36 into 16, it's a more convoluted approach, but it can be done. There are plnty of options. Such as the following:

1) You could still just let 16 teams in, and knock off the two worst qualifiers by goal differential.

2) You could automatically qualify the nine first place teams from each group, then take the top seven of the second place finishers.

3) You could automatically take the top eighteen (the first and second place winners), then add two wildcards (the best of the remaining teams), and include the bottom six qualified teams and two wildcards in a one-round elimination to get into the final 16 (the top twelve sides get byes from this round).

4) You could so three, but take six wildcards. And then the extra elimination round would include 16 teams instead of 8 (with the top eight teams being given a bye).

I don't really like my fourth suggestion, as I think ti waters things down too much for the later round, which should be hard to get to. But the others seem workable. I really think Option Three could work.

As for European football, I know it's the best. That's what I said in my post, if you will recall. But how much better? Is it so much better that all of 14 teams should get qualifying bids without a playoff, just by playing within their own regional qualifiers? I don't think it's too much to ask the bottom level European qualifiers (#13 and #14) to beat out the bottom end Asian, North/Central Amerocan/South American or African fringe qualifiers to make it to the final Cup competition. If European football is the best--indeed is so good that it's 14th team is better than Asia's fifth team or Africa's sixth team, it can prove it on the pitch, right?

I can't speak for the Asian teams or Oceania, but South America is the second best continent for soccer in the world. Yet they have to play a playoff to get their fifth team in, and they almost lost that berth to Oceania. African teams seem pretty solid to me. Egypt, Cameroon, South Africa are no lightweights, I understand, and there are plenty of others that could develop into good soccer-playing nations as well.

As for North/Central America, if there are so few quality teams, why do good sides like Mexico and (yes) the United States still have to play some good ball to qualify? I think you slight good Central American teams like Costa Rica and El Salvador when you say that, and some Carribean sides, like Trinidad & Tobaggo, aren't bad at all. And all this doesn't figure into how strong the region would be if more industrialized countries like Cuba and Canada would get off their arse and start playing some serious football.

Chief Rum

[MIJB#19]

I didn't think of bye's solution in the playoffs, but that would solve the problems of getting into a 36 teams tournament.

The main issue is that the FIFA will probably not allow this (they want the best teams to play, to get more viewers, to get more money), though the top countries (and their players) would probably favor the system, giving the best players some extra rest, even though it would lead to not playing a game for over a week.

I think the UEFA and European associations would never agree with lowering the # of European teams. The past editions it's been a trend that European teams with a great history in the world cup miss the tournament.
Not to mention the trend of a semi finalist not making the next tournament: 2002 - Holland/Netherlands; 1998 - Sweden; 1994 - England; 1990 - France.

On the other hand, the African and Asian associations are not likely to be willing to (see their team(s)) play European teams. The 5th country of those associations will be playing a much better team.

Last, but not least, with intercontinental playoffs, where has the idea of regional qualification gone too?
I mean, if this trend continues, why not make world wide qualification groups? Heck, let the seeding be based on the (unfair) FIFA some coke brand Rankings (too give it finally a role in soccer) and go back to the original 16-teams format.
At least it would allow (not to rich) South Africa to almost halve the money to be spend on improving stadiums.

[MIJB#19]

Based on results in the past and number of members for each association, I came to the calculation of the following number of entries per continent being reasonable:

UEFA (Europe (53 members) - 8
CAF (Africa, 52 members) - 6
CONMEBOL (South America, 10 members) - 5
CONCACAF (North and Central America, 35 members) - 5
AFC (Asia, 44 members) - 5
OFC (Oceania, 11 members) - 1
host nation - 1
defending champion - 1
dropping one automatic berth would give this berth to UEFA, UEFA would deserve 8.7 berths
dropping a second automatic berth would make this a tough berth to give away, OFC/AFC and CONCACAF all came down to x.30 to x.35 berths.

I guess defending Europe's 14 berths isn't so fair at all...

I think Oykib's statement makes it a valid point to say South America doesn't even deserve a 4.5 berths at only 10 members.

[ice4277]

Originally posted by MIJB#19
I think Oykib's statement makes it a valid point to say South America doesn't even deserve a 4.5 berths at only 10 members.

But, again, it depends on the quality of the team. Most of the, say, 35 teams in CONCACAF or 44 teams in Asia would get beat by 9 out of the 10 teams in South America, IMO.

"If European football is the best--indeed is so good that it's 14th team is better than Asia's fifth team or Africa's sixth team, it can prove it on the pitch, right?"

They already do...in their own qualifying groups. As MIJB said, if there start to be too many inter-zone qualifying groups, you may as well just have a single worldwide qualification competition. It's like if you had the sixth-placed Big 12 team needed to play off against the runner up of the MAC to go to the NCAA tourney (wait a minute, that actually doesn't seem like a bad idea ;) )

"As for North/Central America, if there are so few quality teams, why do good sides like Mexico and (yes) the United States still have to play some good ball to qualify? I think you slight good Central American teams like Costa Rica and El Salvador when you say that, and some Carribean sides, like Trinidad & Tobaggo, aren't bad at all. And all this doesn't figure into how strong the region would be if more industrialized countries like Cuba and Canada would get off their arse and start playing some serious football."

Yes, Mexico and the U.S. have some tough games, but I think a big part of that has to do with away matches. Fans in a lot of the smaller countries in the area give their teams rabid support (not to mention mixed in with a little hatred of the US I think) in small, bandbox-type stadiums, with often searing hot weather conditions. Put those teams on a neutral pitch in Germany or Korea and they will do nowhere near as well. And yes, it would be nice to see Cuba and Canada play better soccer but not by giving them easier access to the World Cup; you need to earn your way into the tournament.

[Chief Rum]

Ice, it's not like we're asking for a whole new round of qualifying. Currently, some berths are determined with a one-match playoff. The regionals merely show who plays in that berth.

The fifth Asian team, and the Oceania top team, and the South American fourth team, and the North/Central American fourth team all have to get through qualifying, too, you know. So saying that Europe having to get through qualifying and then a playoff is somehow worse than the others is logically wrong.

Europe already gets 14 spots. I don't think it's so much to ask that the bottom two qualifiers should have to win their way into the competition, just like the fringe qualifiers ont he other continents.

Also, the state of Cuba's and Canada's national programs at the moment is not the impetus for adding a fourth berth to CONCACAF--it is merely another reason to take a look at the potential of the region. Adding a berth is not meant for the benefit of countries that aren't qualifying for it anyway, but for good teams like Costa Rica and El Salvador that are often missing out right now. If someday, Canada and Cuba get off their asses and start playing more competitive soccer, than it will be that much more worth it. But as it stands right now, they already have nil chance of beating the U.S., Mexico or several Central American teams for the third spot or the fourth playoff option, so adding a fourth berth isn't going to "make it easier" for them.

I think you discredit CONCACAF's quality of soccer unfairly. Good ball is played by many of the countries in this region--and, yes, even the Carribean ones.

Chief Rum

[ice4277]

Chief,

I think the level of play amongst the elite of CONCACAF (USA, Mexico, Costa Rica) is good enough to compete against almost any other nation in the world. But when I look at the squads below that, I just don't see the talent there that I see in South America, Europe, and Africa. Same goes for Asia. I don't think I'm being that unfair to CONCACAF; it would be great to see teams from the region keep making improvements, and I have no doubt that, over time, they will. But I haven't seen anything from them recently, on a worldwide scale, to give them that much more credit.

Actually, I think the level of play in Canada is getting slowly better, and I wouldn't be surprised if they qualified for the World Cup within the next decade.

[Critch]

In the last world cup, Ireland qualified by beating Iran in a playoff, so lower qualifying European teams do normally have to go through qualifiers against other regions. I remember Scotland knocking out Australia in the past, so it's not unusual.

As for whether Europe deserves 14 teams, a look at the teams that have reached the World Cup semi-final since they were re-introduced shows, for me, why Europe deserves the places.

Semi-finalists:

Europe 9 (Italy, Poland, Germany, France, Belgium, England, Bulgaria, Sweden, Turkey)
South America 2 (Argentina, Brazil)
Asia 1 (South Korea)

There are a lot of good teams worldwide, but there's more depth of good teams in Europe. Teams like Holland, Yugoslavia, Czech Republic, Romania all failed to qualify for the last World Cup, and it's only in Europe that teams of that quality would run the risk of not qualifying.

Personally, I would like to see Oceania get a place before the 4th team in Asia as I'm not convinced that Asia have done enough to deserve the extra places. Look at the last World Cup and the only teams that were truely out of their depth were Asia's 3rd and 4th teams China (played 3 lost 3 scored 0) and Saudi Arabia (Played 3 lost 3, scored 0).

But I would agree that the fanboy-ism and moderators over as CM's noticeboards make them fairly useless :)

[cthomer5000]

Is the decision to not give Brazil (defending champs) an automatic berth going to be policy from here on out?

Or is this just a special case?

If it is a one-time thing, what's the reason?

[ISiddiqui]

ct: it's the policy from hear on out.

I like this decision. 32 teams is good enough. Any more than that, and the tourney gets to be too long, which is bound to cause problems... especially with the length of European leagues... players are going to be overtired and get more easily injured if it went significantly longer.

This way it is better. 8 team of 4, top 2 move on into a knockout phase. Simply, easy, and good.

As for Europe. It has the best football, so keeping it at 14 automatic seems ok with me. The whole one game playoff is only because FIFA can't decide who that spot should go to :D. They don't know whether to give NA a 4th spot or Asia a 4th, etc. It's an easy cop out.

[GoldenEagle]

Keep it at 32. We don't need a watered down product. If Ocenina can't beat the 5 place South America team, then they do not deserve to go.

CONCAF maybe desrves four bids, no more.

[kiwiLB57]

I initially thought that the awarding of an entire berth to the Oceania region was a little silly. It meant that either Australia or New Zealand were effectively guranteed a place in the WC.

However once the Australians started chirping on that they had been given an automatic berth (inferring that NZ was no challenge to the Green and Gold of Australia) I was quite pleased.

The manner in which FIFA have arbitrarily taken the berth back is underhanded and not in the spirit of a world-wide sporting body. I don't disagree that the decision makes sense, I just think the whole process was handled very poorly. Oceania was originally promised the extra berth after they indicated to Blatter that they would support his re-election in November last year. Clearly his integrity is even murkier than is generally appreciated.

Long-term I think that New Zealand Soccer would be best served by being part of the Asian qualifying region, as suggested by Chief Rum. That way NZS gets exposure and guranteed matches against opponents of a much higher quality than they currently do against the Oceania teams. The lack of quality opponents is seen as a continued barrier to the improvement of NZS at the international level. Compounding this is the fact that nealy all of our top players are based in the US/Europe and it is nearly impossible to get them back from their clubs for friendly matches. For the recent Confederations Cup tournament only two of the 23 man squad were New Zealand based.

Being part of Asia also allows a steady qualification phase rather than the sudden-death home and away series with the fifth placed Sth. American team which usually involves a team from that continent that has been through the tough qualification process already.

There are currently plans underway for future New Zealand "Home" games to be played in London. This would put the fixtures in a more desirable location in terms of where top-quality NZ players and opponent teams are based. That and the fact that there are thousands of kiwis in London who would turn up to support the national tiddly-winks team if it gave them an opportunity to dress in black, sing the anthem and perform the haka.

cheers

kiwiDE57

[Chief Rum]

Thanks for the insight, KiwiLB57. Just for the record, oykib came up with the Oceania joining Asia regionals idea. I merely trumpeted it as a good idea after he suggested it. :)

Just credit where due.

CR

[kiwiLB57]

Roger. Nice work oykib.

Can't believe my 100th post was about soccer :(

kiwiDE57

[Mac Howard]

The airways here are hot with accusation of betrayal over the dropping of the automatic qualification for Oceania. But there are a few voices that are saying that, though the manner of it was disgraceful, Australia must take some responsibility for this.

The two reasons given for removing the spot - New Zealand's poor performance in the Confederation Cup and the shambles at Soccer Australia - have some validity. FIFA don't like their tournaments being disrespected and the Socceroos certainly showed disrespect for the Confederation Cup (and New Zealand) when they left out their best players in the qualifier with New Zealand. Had the team that has beaten France, Brazil, England and a raft of other quality countries over the last two years played in this last fortnight's tournament in France then I don't beleieve that the first argument would hold any water and had Soccer Australia taken up the recommendation of the government sponsered report on it's reorganisation instead of becoming embroiled in a political and legal brawl, then the South American FIFA contingent would have had much more trouble convincing others to support them.

As kiwiLB57 says, the Oceania group should be integrated into the Asia region until the game develops considerably here. It is unreasonable that there should be a guaranteed place to Australia/New Zealand. But it's also unreasonable for one of these to go into a home and away tie with a South American team that has honed it's team over 20 matches or so when their own team has had no significant quality games to play for in the past 4 years in which to develop their teams.

It has been the wish of Australia to play in the Asia region for some time but that has been ignored by FIFA. If Oceania is to be denied an automatic spot then there must be changes to their qualification process both to satisfy the rest of the world that they have done so legitimately and to provide them with quality international football to allow the game to develop down here.

Incidentally, I think the idea behind the 36 team final was that you would have 9 groups of 4 and that the top nine teams and the best 7 second teams would go to a 16 team knockout competition.

[Easy Mac]

CONCACAF deserves no more than 2, and I'd argue the third is normally a throw away.

Didn't FIFA do away with previous winners receiving a bye into the tournament? I though they gave that poisition to Oceania. Did they change their minds?

[Mac Howard]

Yes, Easy Mac, the World Cup Champions no longer have an automatic entry into the Finals. This is part of the problem for the South American confederation because it means that Brazil will be playing for one of their 4 spots. So they see themselves as having gone from 5 automatic spots and one play-off to four automatic spots.

I too think that CONCACAF might well have justifiably lost a spot. The same could be said of Africa and Asia. Both of those confederations run quickly out of quality when you get to the lower spots.

When you get down the list all confederations have weak teams in there. The argument that a quality team would not come out of Oceania is a bit hypocritical. The argument for the Oceania spot is that all confederations should have at least one representitive. It is meant to be the World Cup not a cup necessarily of the best teams. It is meant to promote the game throughout the world and lend support to the developing areas as well as provide a spectacle of the best football.

That's why this decision is a disaster for Oceania soccer - not just for the football team that may not make it - but for the development of the game in this area. Because of its geographic remoteness (few quality teams want to come here to play) this area needs special attention.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Let's just have a worlwide group qualifying phase and see what comes out and have the best teams play the world cup.

And if there are then 25 european teams with no asians , then so be it.