Rumor: CONCACAF and CONMEBOL Discuss Merging WC Qualifying

The thought of our boys flying to Chile to play at like 60,000 feet makes me cringe. Park the bus fellas!!!!

In the end this is all about the $$$$$$

Playing in America will make tons of money for all of the South American Federations. Same reason we always play Mexico in L.A. and not Seattle. Nothing to do with US home field advantage but $$$$.

In the end, if we do this, I think this will actually make it more difficult for the USA to qualify for the World Cup since we know all of our home games will be played in places with very large immigrant populations of the away country. Making these fixtures away and REALLY away versus home and away.

 

I'm all for it. It would make our road to the world cup all the more challenging, but I think a merger in general would be extremely beneficial for CONCACAF and CONMEBOL in the long run.

 

No way CONMEBOL goes for this. All those rumors keep coming from CONCACAF, and always get shot down by CONMEBOL people.

 

For qualifying the USA plays Mexico in Columbus.

 

I agree, but Conmebol probably has a hard limit on how many teams can qualify from their federation.

Having 6 or 7 out of 10 teams qualify may not be something FIFA allows (maybe they will).

Right now is what 3.5 + 3.5 = 7, if the new allocation is 10+, then S. American clubs could have 7-8 qualify "easily".

Shit in a bad concacaf year, maybe all 10 could (I doubt it would happen).

Honduras and Panama would be the biggest possible losers here.

 

I don't want this. I want more competition within CONCACAF from the already current members. Canada is on its way. Costa Rica will always be a worthy opponent.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...urney-in-2020-heres-whats-next-for-usmnt/amp/


Looks like in the summer of 2020 we will be watching Copa America instead of playing it.

 

They'd have to be crazy to ever give voting majority to the Caribbean islands, considering they are one of the Big Two confederations.

The berths for 2026 are six for CONCACAF (including hosts) plus six for CONMEBOL, plus a seventh team from both goes to compete the mini-tournament with other four teams, one from AFC, one from CAF, one OFC and a second one from the hosting confederation (CONCACAF). The top two in the mini-tournament also go to the WC.

So the 2026 qualification in C-CAF is for three spots plus two mini-tournament spots, since three spots will be taken by the organizers. That's room for Costa Rica, Panama and Jamaica/Honduras to get their tickets directly, and the loser of the last plus Trinidad to go to the mini.

C-BOL can get six direct qualified teams (ARG, BRA, URU, COL, plus two more) and sends a seventh to the mini-tournament (ECU, PER, PAR, CHI, VEN are all likely) which is likely to be one of the faves to get one of the two extra tickets. So South America is not unlikely to end up sending 70% of its teams.

 

I know you picked that number out of the air, but Everest is 29,000 ft. I like the idea of trying to play at twice that elevation. It's like trying to play on Mars.

 

if the USA doesn't participate in Copa 2020 and CC 2021 is dead, you know what that means...

USA has nothing but 2 Gold Cups, Concacaf NL X2, WC Qualifiers and friendlies.

so pretty much nothing but concacaf for almost 4 years.

 

Being stuck in CONCACAF for us is bad, but for Mexico is almost a tragedy.

 

can't be helped, it is what it is, countries play in their respective regions.Don't see the 2 big guns of USA/Mexico leaving. I see too much concacaf put down even though the USA failed to qualify from concacaf to begin with.

well they are saying 2020 copa will have 2 guests, so it's possible it could be USA and/or Mexico. Could also make sense why some young players like Weah/Sargent are going to U23, give them so non concacaf experience and what looks like concacaf dominated schedule.

 

https://www.google.com/amp/www.espn.com/soccer/copa-america/story/3799941/ussf-copa-america-2020-invitation-is-still-valid-despite-conmebol-rejection-cordeiro?platform=amp

"It's not about what we call it and who runs it. It's about growing the game for our fans and our players. We think there is a significant opportunity here that we want to take advantage of."


As per reports I had seen before claiming SUM/USSF got way ahead of themselves and went as far as asking FIFA if it was okay to rename Copa America to Continental Cup without even consulting with CONMEBOL, that quote by Cordeiro confirms it. SUM probably thought CONMEBOL was going to drop to their demands because of money and let them take over Copa America.

That is why CA 2020 won't be here and CONMEBOL is now looking at making it in Argentina/Colombia. US and Mexico will be invited but it looks like SUM wants to make money that summer and is dead set on making a tournament here in the states but I just don't see with whom.

 

Considering the US has been in space and other extremely low atmospheric environments far more often than the other CONMEBOL and CONCACAF nations, I believe our uniforms will give us a technological advantage that will propel us to the WC.

 

they wouldn't have to to merge qualification. They could have COCACAF and CONMEBOL have equal voting rights. The Caribbean nations would keep their status in CONCACAF but not increase it beyond. I believe the qualification could be combined without combining CONCACAF and CONMEBOL.

 

I think that it definitely IS about the money but it could still make for a good opportunity. it would raise the level of the qualifying process (at least the latter stage(s) to a level somewhere inbetween the current tournament and the wc. The fact that it is about the money doesn't mean it won't be good for fans and doesn't mean it won't be a good thing for the USMNT specifically or even the rest of CONCACAF.

While it is primarily about the money, It may not just be about the money. CONMEBOL has 4.5 slots. My guess is that they wouldn't double their slots to 9 out of 10 but if they were to combine with CONCACAF they could maximize slots. Because CONCACAF is larger, perhaps their 3.5 slots is more likely to rise to 6 or 7. I could see combined the two regions getting 13, 13.5 or 14
slots. With this in mind, CONMEBOL could still very easily qualify 9 from their region and CONCACAF would possibly qualify one less than they might without CONMEBOL but with the added $$$$ and prestige that would go with the combined tournament. Small CONCACAF nations that have absolutely no hope of qualifying for the WC would now have hopes of qualifying for a tournament that is more prestigious than the current wc qualifyiing tourney.

 

New York is 1000 miles closer to London than it is to Buenos Aires. Why do we match up to SA?

 

Especially with SuMLS scheduling home WCQ's in places with large scale immigration from the opponent. Bottom line is immigrants are willing to poney up more $$ than MNT fans, and suMLS is all about the bottom line.

 

Because UEFA wants us even less?

It's always about the money. The problem is how the loot is divided. If it's true things were not fair after Centenario and CONMEBOL didn't get as much as expected, I can understand why they're wary of doing business again.

 

And Panama was created out of Colombia. Distance doesn't really help your case here, unless you want individual cities to pick which confederation to belong to. We are clearly closer to the other CONCACAF countries than any other confederation, and CONCACAF as a whole is closer to CONMEBOL than any other confederation.

 

that would be more interesting with about five cities like Seattle, Boston, Miami, Houston and Chicago showing the distance from the farthest city in each federation to the closest.

I'll give a couple of examples - Seattle, Miami. BTW, seems crazy until I look at a map that Boston is closer to SA cities than San Diego. Still for some players those will be extremely long flights to either continent.

Seattle - Moscow = 7685
Seattle - Reykjavic = 3618
Seattle - Buenos Aires = 6923
Seattle - Bogata = 4118

Miami - Moscow = 5616
Miami - Reykjavic = 3685
Miami - Buenos Aires = 4415
Miami - Bogata = 1521

San Diego - Moscow = 7786
San Diego - Reykjavic = 4363
San Diego - Buenos Aires = 6017
San Diego - Bogata = 3390

Boston - Moscow = 5264
Boston - Reykjavic = 2435
Boston - Buenos Aires = 5382
Boston - Bogata = 2618

 

Of course more important than the distance is the time difference. Travelling north to south and back is easier on the body than east west.

That is not to minimize the difficulty of travelling those kinds of distances but I would rather spend more travel time with 2-4 hours time difference than half the half the distance with 8-10 hours difference. I know that the time difference between Los Angeles and Sweden just destroys me when I have been visiting in-laws. (of course that is a combination of long trip and big time difference)

 

Can we play all our qualifying games in Fargo or Alaska?