Rumour: Caribbean Football Union (CFU) to leave CONCACAF?

Conmebol would never merge with Concacaf, as I wrote above.

Would Conmebol merge with North and Central America? Unlikely, but less than with the Caribbean.

 

Puerto Rico, Cuba and Dominican Republic may wish to remain with North and Central America, I guess.

 

they should combine qualifiers instead... i'm tired of seeing mexico automatically go to the world cup and do jack.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_the_Americas_by_population

the top 24 are very welcome in Conmebol, and nobody else, seriously.

 

I like it. It will leave CONCACAF with 10 teams, perfect for a CONMEBOL-style qualifying event. At this point Cocacaf and Conmebol can have a joint Copa America and the Gold Cups can be scrapped. The Copa America would have 16 teams. Conmebol teams, the US, Mexico, Canada, and Costa Rica (best C.A. team) get byes to tournament. Other six teams played in two rounds of two-leg knockouts to determine two other teams. Two higher ranked teams get byes to the second round. The Confed Cup is probably going away, and the extra revenue of the extended qualifying run will cover losing the Gold Cups.

 

As far as representation in a 48-team world cup with 7 confederations:
Europe: 16 (that's what they want)
S. America: 6
N/C America: 5
Oceania: 1
Caribbean: 2
Asia: 9
Africa: 9

 

Mexico has a streak of advancing one round in World Cups.

 

I doubt that Haiti is 13th in the Conmebol mergeability ranking.
I'd check the GDP list instead.
Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Bahamas are not inside it,.

 

The Caribbeans could probably secure two world cup berths with a split (assuming it is timed with expansion). They'd also get guaranteed berths to U17 and U20 World Cups (the OFC currently gets two guaranteed berths to each tournament). Expansion has opened the door for this by promising CONCACAF enough berths to make a separate Caribbean possible (the Caribbean would just take 2 berths out of the CFU allocation - 2 out of 6.5).

It would be sort of like a second OFC, but substantially stronger.

There's much more to it than this.

First, the Caribbean has been squeezed financially in the wake of the corruption scandals. There is a legitimately tight money stream here and it is not just those tied to the corruption who are feeling it. This is a legitimate issue - CONCACAF is tightening the money flow in an abundance of caution, and the CFU is paying a price for that. Even if the CFU were 100% transparent and on the straight/narrow, it would likely be complaining about this. The lack of funds is an issue.



Second, the CFU is right to feel singled out. Yes, corrupt officials have crawled out of the CFU at too high a rate, but North America has not been innocent in this. Chuck Blazer, a top American official, was a lynchpin in all of this, as were leaders in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras (as well as plenty of folks in CONMEBOL). Traffic Sports is not a Caribbean controlled or owned entity, yet it was the main organization actor in all of this.

Look at the list of indictments (primary and secondary) and count the Caribbeans. Count the number of Caribbean nations represented in those indictments. Then tell me it is fair to tar and feather the entire region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_FIFA_corruption_case#Indicted_individuals_and_corporations

Central America and the USA played a big role in all of this, yet aren't paying the kind of price the Caribbean is and are not considered as unworthy of trust as the Caribbean. Why shouldn't much the Caribbean (nearly all of which was untouched by any indictments) feel a little bothered by this? Jamaica, Cuba, DR, PR, Antigua, St. Vincent, Haiti, and a dozen others are paying a price for crimes carried out by Trinis and Caymanians while Central Americans aren't asked to pay anywhere near that price and neither are Americans (who served as ringleaders in all of this). Why shouldn't they be annoyed by this?




Third, the fact that Oceania will (as of 2026) have a guaranteed presence at every World Cup (they will have 1 full berth after expansion) is extremely relevant here. The Caribbean is more than twice the size of Oceania (25 FIFA members vs. 11) and has more than twice the population (40 million vs. 16 million). The CFU also has at least 3 times the number of teams that could be considered credibly capable of competing at the WC level were they to get there (Oceania has only New Zealand; the Caribbean has Jamaica, Trinidad, and Haiti). This is on top of the fact that the CFU has far more depth (nobody in Oceania comes close to NZ's capability, and second tier Caribbean sides like Guyana and Antigua are FAR more professional and capable than second tier OFC sides like Samoa and Vanuatu) and no Oceanian team has won a World Cup game (a CFU team has done this - Jamaica).

When you consider all of the above and then adopt the Caribbean perspective, it isn't hard to see why they'd start at least thinking about separation.

Oceania is inferior to them by just about every meaningful measure (quality, depth, size, population, competitive record, etc), yet Oceania has a guaranteed presence at every single WC from 2026 on. Also, as of 2015, Oceania gets two guaranteed slots at every U-17 and U-20 World Cup. The Caribbean doesn't have any such guarantee - they've got several nations willing and able to lock them out every cycle at every level from U17 to Seniors.

The Caribbean is clearly no less deserving and is no less distinct as a geographic region than Oceania, so why shouldn't the Caribbean get that kind of guaranteed representation as well? New Zealand doesn't have to worry about getting forced out of World Cups by Australia, so why should Jamaica or Trinidad have to worry about Mexico and the USA bullying them off the road to Russia/Qatar/[insert WC location here]? Why should they and the rest of the OFC get multiple guaranteed berths at youth World Cups while the Caribbean does not?

These aren't illegitimate questions for the Caribbeans to be asking.

 

I'm pretty much convinced now. There's a bizarro universe south of the Equator.

 

How? It's exactly what your confederation gets on a proportional basis.

There are 11 teams in Oceania. They get 1 full berth after 2026.

1/11 = 9% of OFC teams making the WC.

There are 25 teams in the Caribbean. Let's say they get 2 full berths.

2/25 = 8% of CFU teams making the WC.

That's almost the exact same number of berths when adjusted for the size of the two confederations. 2 berths for the CFU would just put them right on par with the OFC, which is by far the most comparable of the existing confederations. If 1 berth is not too much for Oceania, I can't see how 2 is too much for the Caribbean, especially given everything I've mentioned earlier about the CFU's greater depth, quality, etc. Giving them exactly what the OFC has received seems more than fair.

 

Most of the concern about smaller confeds and calls for mergers to eliminate them come from fans, not officials. There's very little evidence that FIFA share any of that concern and very little evidence they'd have any real incentive to block a CFU split from CONCACAF (especially when they already allow a much weaker OFC to exist).

 

I looked at FIFA Rankings in January of the last ten years. CFU has had no appearances in the Top 32 in those rankings one appearance in the Top 48 by Haiti. It looks like there were no rankings in January 2010, so I checked December 2009 and February 2010 neither one of which had a CFU team in the Top 48. I know this is not what is going to happen, but with a 48 team World Cup I would propose 1.5 spots for CFU and 0.5 for OFC with a playoff against each other. With that allocation, OFC would not get a guaranteed spot, but their playoff spot would be against an easier opponent than Mexico, Costa Rica, and Uruguay, all of whom were in an interconfederational playoff for at least one of the last two World Cups. I think we can agree that the second best CFU team is worse than Mexico, Costa Rica, and Uruguay,

 

Personally I think the OFC and AFC should merge. With the rumour of Asia getting 8 spots, if they merged they might have 9 spots and New Zealand would probably be confident.

 

There is 1 to many. 1 has to go to the host.