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World Cup 48 team expansion allocation


red23

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39448474

What do you make of this? teams like USA & Iran, guaranteed to be in it every year.

  • 9 African teams?
  • 6 North/Central America teams??
  • 8 Asian teams?!?!
  • One from Oceania
  • Only 3 extra places for European teams?
  • 6 out of 10 teams from South America qualifying???

What a dire World Cup that will be.

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A third of the places going to European teams seems proportionally fair. To be honest if they have to insist on expanding it I'd rather it was 64 teams and 16 groups of 4. Play more games each day and just get non-stop football on the go for a couple of months. Much better, and Scotland might even have a chance of qualifying. 8)

ETA: 8 Asian teams over 6 South American teams is mad though. Clearly FIFA can smell where the money is in football.

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China

 

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Tbh you could have all 10 South American teams and every single one would be better than teams like Uzbekistan, UAE, New Zealand, Panama or Trinidad & Tobago, who are almost certainties to make it under these new allocations. Or have 24 out of the 50-odd from Europe by the same logic. The problem is if you base your criteria on ability then you'd have 100% of SA teams or half of Europe qualifying compared to 10% of Asia.

Yeah, it means a diluted World Cup with a number of absolute diddies making it, but there just isn't a way of linking ability with a fair distribution of places, simply because Europe and South America are generally competent at football across the board, whilst a large number of nations in Asia or tiny island nations in the Caribbean aren't. There isn't really a better way of doing it if you want to "develop" the game in places like Africa and Asia.

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51 minutes ago, HibsFan said:

A third of the places going to European teams seems proportionally fair. To be honest if they have to insist on expanding it I'd rather it was 64 teams and 16 groups of 4. Play more games each day and just get non-stop football on the go for a couple of months. Much better, and Scotland might even have a chance of qualifying. 8)

ETA: 8 Asian teams over 6 South American teams is mad though. Clearly FIFA can smell where the money is in football.

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China

 

Interestingly (or not), China aren't even in the top 8 Asian teams as things stand. Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Australia, Uzbekistan, UAE and Syria are.

Additionally, our future World Cup hosts Qatar are even further down this list, with a whopping 4 points from 7 games, leaving them behind the football powerhouses of Uzbekistan, Syria and China in their group.

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1 hour ago, Nightmare said:

Additionally, our future World Cup hosts Qatar are even further down this list, with a whopping 4 points from 7 games, leaving them behind the football powerhouses of Uzbekistan, Syria and China in their group.

They're 84 in the rankings which is only a place behind where South Africa were in 2010. But they won't be participating in qualifiers next time around, so could very easily start the tournament as the lowest ranked hosts. 

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Allocations announced:

 

Africa 9 places

Asia 8

Europe 16

Central/North America and Caribbean 6

Oceania 1

South America 6

 

Then a six team playoff featuring the next best team from every continent except Europe, plus one extra team from the host continent. All playoffs to be held in the host nation, presumably over one leg. The four lowest ranked playoff teams play first, with the two winners joining the two highest ranked teams in the next playoff round. The two winners qualify.

 

 

 

 

 

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On current world rankings:

The 6th best South American side (Peru) are 18th in the world rankings.

The 16th best European side (Turkey) are 26th in the world rankings.

The 6th best CONCACAF side (Haiti) are 69th in the world rankings.

The 8th best AFC side (Qatar) are 84th in the world rankings. 

One automatic place for Oceania is New Zealand in 112th (Tahiti in 149th are favourites for the playoffs, marginally ahead of New Caledonia).

 

That's before you add in some of the dross (non European for some reason) that gets in through the playoffs.

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Poisoned beyond all repair, imo. The 16 Uefa spots is presumably to allocate one per finals' group, but in truth if they want to go with this 48 team nonsense, there's plenty of room to acknowledge the Euroepean contribution without taking from the rest.
 
20 from Uefa would suffice, without changing much of the current structure. 10 groups instead of 9 currently, top two going through. 6 South Americans seems fine, on a quality basis, but most of the Big Five would probably walk it, as they do now. Only difference being that Argentina (this time), Uruguay (last time) and any others that struggle, would probably still limp home instead of missing out because of being shite. 
 
In Concacaf, likewise.....Mexico have limped into the last two finals, yet will be guaranteed a spot in this. Given the numbers, they'd also lose their golden ticket qualifiers v USA, the only matches anyone in the world cares about from that region. With only 6 teams to have played in the finals since 1990 also suggests a dearth of quality. 
 
Conversely, Africa has a fair amount of recycling of qualifiers, we've had by my count 11 teams since the increase to 32....only Togo and Angola qualified just once. Asia, has provided seven, (China and PDRK just once)......again, quality disparity. It'll be shite. 

Yep this.....
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6 out of 10 South American countries will make it, with a further spot going into the play-off, which kinda devalues the whole point of having a South American qualifying tournament. Will the big guns even bother playing their star names (like Australia used to do when hammering the Cook Islands and whomever else)? Will TV companies want to show that? One fewer place for them, maybe 2 fewer from CONCACAF (there would still be the play-off round) and give one more to Africa and 2 more to Europe and you'd maybe have the best of both worlds.

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It's interesting that some people still think football is a factor in these decisions. If it's considered at all it's a long way behind votes, politics and money. 

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You know how Kazakhstan changed from AFC to UEFA, and Australia switched from OFC to AFC, any chance of Scotland moving from UEFA to OFC?


Israel played in the OFC qualifiers for the 1990 World Cup and got to the play off. Taiwan also played in OFC that year but got battered by New Zealand.
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On ‎31‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 09:23, Bully Wee Villa said:

Allocations announced:

 

Africa 9 places

Asia 8

Europe 16

Central/North America and Caribbean 6

Oceania 1

South America 6

Put another way... Africa - 4 more places... Asia - 3.5 more... Europe - 3 more... CONCACAF - 2.5 more... Oceania 0.5 more... South America 1.5 more.

Frankly I find the "repechage" arrangement a bit odd. Particularly given Africa and Europe will have to settle their entrants through "worst runners-up", random draws, or drawing a lucky loser, unless they change the qualifying format.

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Seems as good a thread as any to put it....

The USA, Canada and Mexico have announced a joint bid for the 2026 World Cup.

Of the eighty games, America would host sixty games, the other two nations ten each.

Seems a bit too US-centric to me. I'd like to think Mexico and Canada would be able to host at least a quarter of the matches each. If America is hosting 75% of games, they may as well just launch a solo bid.

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