Is it time to dust off this idea? The three North American and seven Central American countries petition FIFA for recognition as a new confederation. The CFU is recognized as a separate confederation. The CFU gets to keep 1/2 World Cup qualifying spot, leaving the new CONCAF with three. The CFU can either play off against Oceanea, or take another half spot from Asia and get an automatic berth. CONCAF WC qualifying becomes a single double-round-robin, like CONMEBOL, with the top three teams advancing. CONCAF agrees to keep inviting three CFU teams to the CCL and Gold Cup. The CFU gets to keep all the benefits of its 30 remaining full FIFA members. Thoughts?
The CFU gets four countries in the Gold Cup, not three. I don't know if FIFA would approve of a confederation not having its own tournaments. Having separate confederations would deny the best islands like Jamaica a chance to get a draw in qualifying at Mexico. If the CFU had 20 to 30 countries competing for 0.5 or 1 World Cup spot, there would be tons of meaningless qualifiers. The CONCAF qualifying would also have meaningless qualifiers with 3 out of 10 teams qualifying.
My mistake. Point is, they don't have to lose that Gold Cup revenue. They have their own tournaments already--the CFU Championship and the CFU Club Championship. They would keep acting as "qualifiers" for the CCL and Gold Cup, as they do now--but they could also add CWC and Confed Cup slots (either a full slot or a playoff against Oceanea). There are a few nations that would be hurt--Jamaica, T&T, Cuba, and Haiti. For the other 24 members, it wouldn't matter much. And those four countries could have a clearer path to the World Cup and the Confederations Cup in exchange. All of those countries are already competing for, realistically, 1 Hexagonal spot. In the five Hexagonals played since 1998, only once has there been more than one CFU team in the hex, and only twice has a CFU teeam actually made the finals. If those teams would be playing meaningless games for one CFU spot, they're playing meaningless games for less than one CFU spot right now. Oceania handles this problem and so can the CFU. They can run quick knockouts, then stick with the hex format, and get some good games going between the four teams with a realistic shot. It's the same process as South America uses to qualify 4 1/2 out of 9 teams, and it seems to work just fine there. Hell, a 10-team CONCAF round-robin would be more competitive than most Euro groups. Or you could make it an 8-team tournament, and make the lowest two (realistically, Nicaragua and Belize) play in for a chance to make the "Oct." It would make sense to let the minnows decide: would they rather play more games to drive development (as European minnows do), or save money by getting knocked out early and avoid too many shellackings (as CONCACAF minnows do now).
In the current format, a CFU country that reaches the WCQ Semifinals will get to face two or three non-CFU countries. Antigua and Barbuda came close to managing a draw hosting USA. If competing against weak countries for 0.5 spots is so great then why did Australia go to AFC? CONMEBOL's group has 5 out of 10 (this time 9 but normally 10) countries have a chance after the group is done. If CONCAF had only 3 out of 10 advance that's a siginificant difference. In order to make an Octagonal, two CONCAF countries would have to be eliminated first, so it wouldn't just be Nicaragua and Belize against each other. Using the FIFA Rankings there would be two pots with El Salvador and Guatemala in the better pot and Nicaragua and Belize in the worse pot.
Well it would not be an Octagonal, just make it first 3 out of 10 and fuck it. Sure many teams will be out of it early, but they would still collect some $$$$ when they keep playing, unlike the current system where they can only play friendly games after they are eliminated. But yes the CFU countries are not going to like that, and frankly most Central Americans would not like that, that .5 spot is very important for them.
This would work, but cut the ties completly no gold cup no champions league nothing for the caribeans they been the dragging us down for long enough. We just need a few executives with a pair bawlz to make this happen.
No; we also need a lot of votes in the FIFA Congress to be accepted as a new confederation. Which is why it's more realistic (to the extent this is realistic at all) to try to conciliate the CFU and their 30 votes instead of pissing them off.