News: Club World Cup to Expand; Confederations Cup to End

Sure, Conmebol can always move the final match to Barcelona, after local thugs throw tantrums for not getting paid.

 

How about the confederation that hosts the WC gets to host the CWC before since it will be in the same year as the Confederations Cup was? When Brazil hosted the WC, most stadiums were in eastern Brazil, and they weren't close to Colombia or Venezuela. If CONMEBOL got to host the CWC first, it could have been shared by Bogota and Medellin. I'm not saying those are good stadiums or areas. I'm just providing a geographic example. If England or Spain hosted a WC, the CWC could be in eastern Europe like Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Turkey. If Morocco or anywhere else in northern African hosted a WC, the CWC could be in southern Africa like South Africa, Angola, DR Congo, or Zambia.

 

Qatar will host the club world cup now... well I know at least one BigSoccer poster that is happy!

 

For those interested, South Korea withdrew in mid-May of this year, and India withdrew last October, so it was effectively by default, although China likely would have been favored, anyway, especially considering their future WC hosting ambitions.

Going on a bit of a tangent now, I hope India puts in a serious bid for the next Asian Cup now that we've gotten the obligatory China one out of the way. Or even a bid for a Women's WC for that matter. We need some serious tournament hosting experience under our belts.

 

China just hosted the Asian Cup in 2004.... would like to have seen it go to somewhere new

 

Glad the CWC is expanding. Still not crazy about it being just every 4 years, but fixture congestion is a danger to every cool idea. Maybe a smaller "FIFA Champions League" could be run in the off years, with maybe just 12 teams (this current 7 is awkward for me)?

 

What's awkward about the current 7 team format?

 

"Too much soccer is too much of a good thing, Adidas boss warns" also applies to expanding the CWC.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-s...-a-good-thing-adidas-boss-warns-idUKKCN1U201I

 

I know how he feels. While I did watch the final of the Nations League, I skipped the finals of the Women's WC, Copa America and Gold Cup. Lets see if I watch the AFCON final.

NL is not really 'more soccer' since it just replaces friendlies, but biannual Copa Americas, AFCONs and Gold Cups need to disappear.

 

It has 4 rounds, with the host and OFC playing in the First Round. 3 teams start in the Second Round, and the UEFA and CONMEBOL champions start in the Semifinals. I'm not saying FIFA should do this, but the simplest 7 team format is 1 bye to the Semifinals and 6 teams starting in the same round. Teams not from UEFA or CONMEBOL want to get lucky and get drawn in the CONMEBOL half of the bracket to have a chance at reaching the Final.

 

I guess I think the current format is OK. The teams that want to play the most matches- OFC and the host - can. And one of the ones that wants to play the least - UEFA - does.

 

I hate 24 team formats, its messy and everyone knows it's always a stopgap.

 

Good point.

Yeah, seems the only good reason to expand it is money.

 

With eight clubs from UEFA, would they be the Champions League Quarterfinalists with spots handed down if countries had more than two Quarterfinalists? I wouldn't want to choose one or two of the Champions League Round of 16 losers. Using 2018-2019, the Manchester clubs would have been excluded as Quarterfinalists that didn't go as far as Liverpool and Tottenham. Giving two spots to the Europa League, Chelsea and Arsenal would be excluded, and the Semifinal losers Valencia and Eintracht Frankfurt would have qualified. I don't think people want those two clubs to be among eight representing UEFA. PSG, both Madrid clubs, Bayern Munich, and Borussia Dortmund would be among the clubs that missed out.