World Cup Expansion to 48 Teams (Update: FIFA Council Agrees 2026 Slot Allocation)

Then this is where you confuse me as you specifically called OFC a region. As FIFA is made up of Confederations based roughly on continents (only Africa 100% corresponds to a Continent) its the confederations that should be represented. That's how they allocate positions. If you don't think they deserve representation then I guess your entitled to your opinion and no argument on my part will persuade you. I don't agree with you.

 

I think what he's saying is that since Australia usually makes the World Cup, New Zealand doesn't need to be represented.

 

Every region. And when Australia was in OFC that was easy to do. But as long as the best team in Oceania is playing in AFC (where its easy to qualify from) one doesn't need to give an automatic spot to OFC in order for the Oceania region to be represented in the WC.

Hope that's clear. It's like if US and Mexico both switched to CONMEBOL. Does that mean CONCACAF should still get 3.5 spots? No. It got weaker so the # of spots should be adjusted accordingly, otherwise that region would be over-represented in every tournament. I think one would have to be pretty biased not to see the logic behind that.

 

Your explanation reminded me of hearing the quote below at a lecture:

"Unsustainable growth is either obesity or cancer".

FIFA is on its way to kill what you correctly describe as the game's golden goose, I feel the "inclusion" argument is just a convenient excuse to what is really the real motivation.

 

How many major regions do you reckon there are?

North America
Central America
Caribbean
South America
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Scandinavia
MENA
Sub-saharan Africa
Caucasian Asia
Subcontinent Asia
"Dragon" Asia
Oceania

If Oceania contains Australia, I figure the only regions that need strong justification for WC berths would be Caribbean and the Subcontinent.

Fully aware it's as much cultural as geographic.

 

I remember there being talks of splitting the AFC into West and East for the qualifiers. I think they might reconsider that during the 2026 qualifiers.

 

Yeah, that would make sense. Reduce travel while also ensuring that each region has at least 1 representative in the WC.

 

The point you ignore is that (in the minds of those proposing expansion - not just in this case but in the corporate sphere more generally) both obesity and cancer are just opportunities to make more money. Obesity leads to demands for diet advice and expensive diet foods - and cancer is even "better", not only can you sell drugs, but the consumers can't live without them (literally!)

That might sound incredibly cynical - sure - but it's reality. It's the reality that FIFA faces every day - they don't really "own" the golden goose - they've got a large call on what it does obviously - but if they don't try and (worst mixed metaphor ever coming up!!!) "milk it" for all it's worth, you can bet there's a million other people who will.

J

 

well whith this expanssion, what FIFA is really doing, it is, "killing" that golden goose. And a dead goose doesn't produce any sort of eggs, at all.

 

Sounds like what FIFA were told about

• expanding to 32
• not awarding the tournament to South Africa
• awarding the tournament to South Africa
• going to Brazil
• going to a country that hadn't qualified for a generation

It's incredibly easy to say "this will kill the World Cup" - but you're wrong. It'll probably make it a bloated, sucky tournament in the views of a lot of people, but again the goose is producing more and more eggs than anyone a decade ago could have imagined.

I'll summarise: "a dead goose doesn't give any eggs" is logic, but "you don't get any eggs from a goose you leave to its own devices" is business.

Guess which one wins.

J

 

The FIFA World Cup is the biggest single sporting event in the world, with this expansion it might lose that status.

 

I've parsed that sentence a few times and I'm still trying to work out if you're trying to be ironically amusing here.

J

 

Is there even a demand for eggs from a goose? ... even the idea leaves a bad taste in your mouth. 24 teams was a mistake ... expanding to 32 made sense ... 2-4-8-16-32-64 ... 48 isn't in there ... it's a mistake as well. South Africa and Brazil ... an infrastructure legacy that's disgusting. More eggs doesn't mean better, healthier eggs ... barren, cramped battery cages sort of football ... besides Fifa doesn't produce the eggs ... the eggs are produced despite a deeply corrupt Fifa ... and their latest major fvck-up of TV rights, the FOX deal ... "luckily" in the current climate Fifa bigwigs don't get egg on their faces ... but more and more eyeballs are turning to the club game ... the standard of football is much better ... this 48 team nonsense will only widen the chasm between club and country ... they really laid an egg.

 

Why African football continues to go nowhere

Africa to almost double their allocation ... they didn't get much attention ... 9 quality teams IS a big ask.

 

It will happen exactly the opposite.....

 

Europe has just 5 spots out of 24!!!

For the first time, I support adding spots for Europe.

 

At this level they shouldn't have anymore than other confeds. They still have the most.

If anything OFC should lose one and CAF should get a fifth slot.

 

Looking at the past 5 under-20 WCs, UEFA teams have still accumulated 7 top four places. CONMEBOL did better with 6 (but of course with fewer teams). CONCACAF with only 2 and AFC just 1! CAF with 4. OFC with 0. Those are the facts.

Consistent with every FIFA tournament, Oceania is the most over-represented region. At least Australia failed to qualify somehow so Oceania won't have 3 teams in the tournament this time.

So, yes, UEFA fully deserved to keep 6 spots. OFC never deserved yet another spot but if you must give them one it should be at the expense of CONCACAF or AFC. There are probably 40 teams in UEFA better than #2 from OFC to put things in perspective.

 

i really get annoyed by everyone who is critizing african football. this article is rubbish.

african teams consistantly prove that they are at least at the same level of concacaf and afc.

if teams like nigeria who has reached round of 16 at last world cup fail to qualify for the last two CAN editions, the quality cannot be that bad.

maybe the pics from gabon are not as. bright as in europe and maybe the stadia are not full but in regard of speed and athletics the matches in gabon were on average beyond those of last years euro.

 

Simple logic using your own argument. UEFA had 50 % more semifinalists with 50% more teams than CAF. So CAF and UEFA should have the same amount of slots. So yes UEFA should have lost a slot while CAF gained one. Results based argument.

If we extend your logic to the U17 World Cup, then CAF should have 6 slots to UEFAs 4.

Overall of you want to base this on results then UEFA should lose at least a slot in both competitions. But not to Oceania but to CAF. Their preferential treatment at the youth events has no justification whatsoever.

 

CAF ritually fails to send their continental champion. Half of the African Cup of Nations semifinalists traditionally fail to appear at the World Cup. Teams like Zambia, Mali, Burkina Faso have yet to play at the cup. CAF may not be title contenders but one thing they needn't worry about is strength in depth.

Right now CAF can easily send 13 good teams : Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Mali, Burkina Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa, Cameroon, DRCongo plus maybe Zambia.

 

There is some truth to that but your math is a bit off (see below). Anyway, just because CAF should have about the same # of teams as UEFA doesn't mean UEFA is over-represented.

If you multiply the success of other confeds by 1.5 (i.e. add 50% like you say) to account for the fact that they have just 4 teams instead of 6, you wind-up with the following:
CONMEBOL - 9
UEFA- 7
CAF - 6
CONCACAF - 3
AFC - 2

So UEFA still doing better than most.

Obviously there are different ways to slice the data, but based on this information one can't reach the conclusion you are looking for. A deeper analysis will show that CONCACAF, for instance, is even further behind than the above data might suggest.

 

Conversely the team that won the ACN did really poorly in the last World Cup.

Anyway, its easy to over-complicate matters arguing that Team A beat Team B and Team A got beat by Team C, so Team C must be amazing. The most important question is: how do CAF teams do in the World Cup overall?

 

Thanks. But to summarize - if we go for equal representation then UEFA had two slots to many. If we give the biggest confeds numerically more slots then why did UEFA have more spots than CAF? If we give confeds based on performance than why did UEFA have more slots than CAF. All in all it boils down to one thing: As compared to CAF UEFA has too many slots. At this level there is no justification whatsoever for them not having an equal amount.

There is also CONMEBOL but they are just a 10 nation confed so it's hard to justify more slots for them.