Qatar 2022

I wonder if the rush to 48 teams in 2022 is driven by a fear that USA might not qualify again? And pressure to get China in. Two big markets.

 

sorry but i disagree.

jamaica, trinidad and tobago, guatemala, el salvador, cuba and canada are nor far behind panama or honduras.

after those teams, there is a clearer decline in quality.

 

It has to do with the South American Confederation wanting more teams in. There has been no indication that the USA is also behind this but I will not rule it out.
Lots of Federations on the outside looking in are probably pushing it because they want to be in the World Cup.

 

I think that could be the case.

 

LOL, no. This is all about doing a favor for the Saudis and other Gulf region countries and getting a vote for the United bid. CONMEBOL and the Saudis announce support for the United bid and then immediately after this happens? All very.much related.

 

I was not saying the USA was behind it. The US I'd hope believe that they could not screw it up twice in a row. But FIFA and television execs at FOX don't want to take that risk.

 

Great now we might have to hear "the USA only qualified because the World Cup expanded."

 

I think there's a lot of people who think that's already the case.

J

 

The qualifying format will be very different when 6-7 CONCACAF nations qualify, so it won’t necessarily be that obvious.

 

I'm not quite sure that QATAR has the necessary infrastructure for a 48 team tournament. They have already cut the number of venues back to 8 from 12. They will need to have available an additional 16 training venues for teams, as well as housing the supporters. Qatar will be stretched enough with a 32 team tournament, so I can't see the tournament expanding in 2022 in Qatar.

 

Does anybody feel like this could be a set up just in case the US could lose the '26 bid as justification to move the '22 WC because Qatar wouldn't be able to have the infrastructure in place in time?

 

Geeze can we quit with the conspiracy theories here guys... the idea to expand the WC to 48 teams was in the works long before the US failed to qualify for WC 2018. It was one of the proposals that got Infantino elected way back before 2016, and the decision was made in January 2017, more than 15 months ago. I think it had more to do with increased revenue for FIFA + more smaller teams wanting it to have a piece of the cherry rather than the confederations big guns wanting guaranteed places. It was the Panamas, the Honduras, the Ecuadors, the Slovakias, the Austrias, the Uzbekistans, the New Zealands, the Burkina Fasos of the world that wanted this, as in many confederations qualification to the world cup is dominated by a hand-full of nations and ever qualifying for a WC was becoming more and more of a pipe dream for them. Remember each nation gets one vote in FIFA regardless of the country's size, population or ranking so many of these nations were very, very keen on the idea of increasing the World Cup size. I'm not saying I'm necessarily in favor of it by any means or that I think it will be good for football, but I completely understand where these nations are coming from.

Anyhoo, I am quite surprised though that FIFA are trying to push this as early as WC 2022. A 32 team world cup is already a daunting task for a nation as small as Qatar, a 48 team WC would be almost mission impossible. Kuwait is not exactly next door, a dry and even more conservative nation than Qatar and I'm not sure if they have any world cup ready stadiums to be honest, other than their newly built national team one. I think the only way this happens is if Qatar, Saudi, and especially the UAE put their differences aside and agree to co-host together... could be a bit of a political coup for FIFA getting these nations back on level terms, and would probably push for more reforms in Saudi.

I think FIFA made a huge error with the 2 world cups being voted at the same time way back in 2010... they should have just voted for 2018 and kept this one for later... so much can change politically and economically in 12 years. Anyway I think with a 48 team world cup in the works, co-hosting and regional tournaments will soon become the norm as there's only a handful of nations that can handle that, so better get used to it.

 

I think if co-hosting becomes the norm in the future that FIFA should just get rid of the hosts qualifying automatically and have everyone compete to get there.

 

I think you take a big risk if you do that. If not the team qualify the country maybe not gonna care so much to host it.

 

I think the bigger issue is seeding the home team. For e.g. Canada would only be slightly weaker than the weakest team that qualifies on merit. So it doesn't really decrease the overall quality much by inviting them.
But when you give Canada a #1 seed, then you really throw off the balance of the groups. Especially if there are 1 or 2 other weak co-hosts in the same tournament also getting #1 seeds.

 

with the 32 team format and multi-country bids I think it's an issue to auto-qualify all the hosts. But with the new 48 team format I don't think it's a big deal. With 3 host nations there's still 45 slots. Even with 5 host nations there's still 43 slots. And I agree with @HansWorldCup.

 

As long as the slots for the co-hosts come out of the host confederation's allocation of WC spots.

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports...oppose-world-cup-expansion-plan/#.WtYz2iKezYU

 

I don't think that's an issue in most cases. A majority of host nations would be strong candidates for the field of 48 anyway. If it's a single country like China, then that's just one spot again. It would only be a negative in the case where multiple weak nations who otherwise would probably not qualify, were to get the bid.

One example that comes to mind is a UK/Ireland bid that's been talked about. Would all 5 nations (England, Wales, N. Ireland, Scotland, Ireland) get an auto bid which takes 5 spots from UEFA's allotment leaving them with just 11?

 

Yes!

 

The only way China gets in at the current/(any expanded wc) rate is if China hosted

32 is probably impossible for Qatar once we get to the logistics in 2-3 years when people try to book hotels. Just look at the pain of accommodation in Russia, with multiple large sized cities, Moscow has 12 million people compared to Qatar's 4 million and its hard to find open hotels and hostels.

Didnt the host bid say originally that guests would likely have to be stay in UAE and Bahrain and cruise ships? add 16 more teams and visiting fans... good luck with that now with the blockade.

I think with 16 groups of 3 the effects will likely be minimal. basically the top 32 teams will be 1-2 seeds, then you add in 16 more for them to beat up on to get to R16. if you had two weak hosts then its still the top 30 teams getting seeds 1-2, i dont think it will cause a group of death as it would for 8 groups of 4

 

Yup.
And then after that they said that they would be hosting people out in the desert in tents and stupid crap like that.

I say that this move to 48 is being considered by FIFA because they know other counties have to get involved in the middle east to make this piece of garbage idea work. OR (what I am truly hoping ) is that it is a way to move the tournament somewhere else.