It's in keeping with trying to grow the women's game worldwide. More opportunities for players to play in WWC and reasons for more fans in more countries to tune in. As for how it affects the competition that depends on how the additional entries are distributed across the confederations. 3 more teams to Asia, say, and there'll be more blowouts.
More farce is unlikely to aid in the ways they think it will. I mean, it makes sense if and only if you never attempt to think any deeper than "more = better!".
In 1994 (the last Men's World Cup before expansion) there were 4 combs. In 1998 there were also 4 combs In 2019 (the Women's World Cup before expansion) there were 5 combs. Yeah, that Thailand game was an embarrassment but it was the outlier. Based on an admittedly small sample size the women's game seems to be at the same point the men's game was when FIFA expanded.
It's not like they're going to add eight sub-Thailand teams. There are plenty of teams that didn't qualify which are better than Thailand--Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, lots of European teams. Much depends on how they allocate the new slots. This is a top-down way of encouraging more growth of the women's game, as it seems that the only thing that gets many FAs to even notice their women's team exists is to see the World Cup as a realistic goal. The expansion to 24 has been a positive, and though I think this is one cycle too early, I believe 32 will be a long-term positive. The bidding countries now have to all revise their bids to add eight new teams, though. So stupid that they didn't sort out the next host before the last tournament.
I think you have to take it together, but even if not, it's not there yet. Here's a possibly unpopular opinion: it may never get there. But that's not all bad. It strikes me that the situation is sort of akin to Rugby Union with no Ireland-Australia-S. Africa near-challenger to N.Z...yet. Not sure that makes sense, but that seems a close analogue. Rugby Union is as mature a sport as there is. They still have wiiiide discrepancies that are not going away.
It's a worthwhile analogy, but the big difference is that women's football is not a mature sport. It's had major international competition for less than 30 years, and its lack of maturity leaves lots of room for new elites to emerge if they put the investment into it. England, Japan, and the Netherlands were irrelevant 20 years ago, and now England is a perennial contender, Japan has won a World Cup, and the Netherlands are European champions and World runners-up.
Well that is the dilemma. You want better competition, then add more European teams. You want to grow the game, then you need more Asian teams (or at least more non-European teams).
If you're counting number of combs, it looks kinda similar, but the difference is much more drastic if you look at total goal differential of the weakest teams: In the 24-team MWC tournaments: 1982: 4 0/1pt teams, -31 GD between them 1986: 6 0/1pt teams, -21 GD 1990: 4 0/1pt teams, -23 GD 1994: 4 0/1pt teams, -24 GD For comparison, the WWC has currently seen: 2105: 5 0/1pt teams, -40 GD 2019: 6 0/1pt teams, -50 GD Even discounting the USA-THA game, the 2019 WWC is still far more lopsided than any of the 24-team MWCs. I know the argument is that "if the WWC expands, it'll encourage more growth in the smaller teams"; the issue is that we haven't yet seen evidence of growth from anyone (except maybe the likes of mid-tier UEFA sides like ESP&NED growing into top-tier sides) due to the growth from 16 to 24. I would personally wish we had actually seen an increase in competitiveness from the minnows before jumping up another 8 teams, but oh well...
Depends if the concern is less bad teams (total GD being a good indicator) or less bad games (blowouts being a good indicator). A team that goes 1-3, 0-1, 0-4 isn't very good but those games aren't all awful on paper. A team that goes 0-13, 1-5, 0-2 largely isn't even providing a good game for people to watch.
I wouldn't discount the growth in Europe, as it's a very important continent in this sport. Italy likely wouldn't have been in the picture without the expansion. The worst European team in this year's tournament, Scotland, still put up a respectable and competitive performance despite finishing last in its group. Scotland wouldn't be anywhere near a 16-team World Cup. The ideal goal of expanding the tournament is to give a team like Scotland a chance, and then hope that its participation fuels more attention and interest to provide a foundation for growth. Can the same be true for others like Argentina, Cameroon, or Chile? We don't know the long-term effects of giving those teams access to the WWC, because the long term hasn't happened yet.
The thing is, while the growth in Europe is good and all, it's not as important for a World Cup. We don't want the World Cup to be the EUROs plus a few teams. Seeing the benefit in Europe but not yet seeing it elsewhere is precisely why it should be clear that it's too soon to expand again. The bold part in particular is questionable unless you're including the likes of ARG/CMR/CHI in the same group as SCO - in which case you would want to see all of them benefit and not just one. I would certainly argue - and FIFA would too - that the expansion of the WWC is more intended to get more nations investing in their WoSo programs than it is to get established nations (like SCO) a better shot.
I did intend to group all of them together. Just didn't want to discount Scotland because it's European. I think the most obvious (mostly) untapped target for significant growth in the women's game is South America.
True, but the two are closely related.... Thailand is a bit of an outlier in the fact that it got combed twice. It's also something to look at whether a team getting combed has other close games, or if more are almost-combs too. The fact that the average GD for weak teams is roughly -8 for both 24-team WWCs means that losing by three is the average for those teams, which IMO is a sign of many bad games.
I suspect that it may look a lot more different when you count 3+ goal wins, which I think are still fairly lopsided most of the time. Looking back, the decision to expand to 24 seemed vindicated by the last 16-team WWC in 2011, where the worst GD in the tournament was -6. In retrospect, though, that tournament may have been the fluke. Both before and after 2011, the norm has been at least two teams with double-digit negative GDs. Compare to the MWC, where there have been exactly two teams with double-digit negative GDs in all six 32-team tournaments combined. On average, the second-worst GD in the MWC in the 32-team era has been about -6. Arguably the WWC shouldn't expand further until we see two tournaments where the second-worst team is at that minimum level of competitiveness.
Am I the only person who thinks USSF hiring lobbyists and PR is more about not losing the World Cup due to government interference than strictly the WNT.