From an interview with CONCACAF president Montagliani: http://www.sportspromedia.com/quick...agliani-on-corruption-common-purpose-and-dona
I still wouldn't be surprised to see FIFA pushing for this behind the scenes if they truly wanted a Pan-American confederation as it's primary competitive foil to UEFA as a means of strengthening the international competitions that they hold rights to. Not that I necessarily want them to leave, but I do dream of a Pan-American confederation and there's good reason to believe that the CFU would be a major obstacle to that. Not that Central America wouldn't have reservations as well, but there are fewer of those nations and fewer votes to wrangle. And not all of them would be opposed to South American competition. Especially if the combined confederation still has enough spots to allow for the possibility of one or two of them qualifying along with the US and Mexico even if every other spot is taken up by a current CONMEBOL team. South America is already strong internationally and adding a strengthened US and Mexico (perhaps others like Costa Rica) to the mix will only lend added competitiveness to the World Cup. In addition, should North American money be added to an already strong economy like Brazil you now have a similar formula which has worked well for Liga MX. Liga MX leverages it's own growing economy and adds in expat dollars from viewing markets in the US in order to raise it's revenues and roster salaries. If North America played South American teams on a regular basis, the viewing potential of a Pan American Champions League would definitely attract the eyeballs of MLS fans who haven't taken interest in CCL as well as fans of the sport who have ignored MLS until now. This lays out the potential for selling Argentine, Brazilian and other South American league to US networks since they're the leagues that we will now be playing on a regular basis. You cannot say that this isn't good for South America's fans who have long bemoaned the growing disparate relation to the European market clubs. I'm not saying that they'll be on par with UEFA, but if it allows the bigger South American clubs to keep more of their own players, it's definitely a plus. And who knows if the Argentine or Brazilian leagues can't become as big and marketable here in the US as Liga MX, La Liga or the EPL. This all goes towards raising the stakes of the Club World Cup for FIFA, a competition which they control. If the club game truly does eventually overtake the international game in terms of appeal and popularity, they will still stand a chance to control it's biggest showpiece, but only if someone can compete with UEFA's teams. Merging CONCACAF and CONMEBOL could be that answer.
The big problem for FIFA is that what starts with the Caribbean won't end with the Caribbean. If a CFU split is approved, then groups like the ASEAN FF and COSAFA might get similar ideas. There start to be a lot of demands on 48 World Cup spots if confederations fragment too much.
I'm not entirely sure, but even if so that may not entirely be a bad thing. I've offered elsewhere that the division between nations with regards to their footballing operations is becoming more extreme, with the majority of FIFA members struggling to provide any sense of professional teams, let alone sustainable leagues. This diversity of interests is feeding the political issues within FIFA, and makes it difficult to develop solutions under a 1-size-fits-all approach. Maybe having a CFU to mirror Oceania (and possibly another comparable confederation) will help give those smaller nations a more organized voice in finding answers to their development issues? Maybe the best way for a Bermuda to make progress is to not work in the shadow of the US but to stand among more true peers who're in the same boat? Don't know. Just thinking out loud here.
Article is a bit over the top but it is insightful and, yeah, this is something that warrants attention. I hadn't thought of it in context with the recent NAFTA world cup bid.
As I said earlier here and in other threads, I think the CFU is going to lose this battle, at least in the short term. Montagliani will marginalize the CFU and One CONCACAF will prevail through the promises and carrots here holds out to the region as part of that united vision. Most of the CFU decision makers are going to gradually take those carrots and follow Montagliani into the One CONCACAF fold, thus leaving Derrick more isolated. Then it will only be a matter of time. Now, here is some more potentially pretty major news: the Bermudan media is reporting that the new Nations League might serve to replace regional competitions (the Caribbean Cup and Copa Centroamericana) as the new method of qualifying for the Gold Cup. It may also very well become the new method of qualifying for the World Cup. http://www.royalgazette.com/soccer/article/20170425/bermuda-set-to-gain-from-league-of-nations What this means: 1. No more Caribbean Cup and no more Copa Centroamericana. 2. Gold Cup is definitely sticking around, though probably on a 4 year cycle now 3. The new Nations League may just play a role in World Cup qualifying as a possible replacement for the Hex. 4. Many more games for smaller nations in CONCACAF who, currently, play VERY sporadically 5. There should still be a few friendlies for bigger nations to be able to schedule 6. Since these Nations League games will be becoming a part of the Gold Cup and World Cup qualifying process, they will likely be deemed competitive matches. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the loss of the Caribbean Cup is a blow for the region. It is one of the few trophies Caribbean teams can legitimately aspire too and it is the only true regional competition the Caribbean has. It is nice for us to have our own "mini Gold Cup" for teams that simply don't get to the Gold Cup. On the other hand, Montagliani is proposing the expansion of the Gold Cup anyway, which would mean more Caribbean teams. That would soften the blow of losing the Caribbean Cup, since several of the Caribbean Cup participants will now have a great chance to go straight to the Gold Cup. These new proposals also definitely will result in more games for smaller nations like Bermuda, which is absolutely a benefit. Even some of the larger nations in the Caribbean like Haiti and Jamaica might become slightly more active as a result of this. This year has been quiet for Jamaica so far due to the lack of World Cup qualifiers, and after July there will be absolutely nothing on the calendar for the Reggae Boyz; Haiti, meanwhile, has absolutely nothing on its calendar going forward after being eliminated from Gold Cup contention by Nicaragua in March - they have no World Cup Qualifiers, no Gold Cup, no Caribbean Cup, and (so far) no friendlies, so a Nations League would definitely result in a more active Haitian National Team in 2017 than what we currently see. As I said, this is a bit of a mixed bag with the biggest issue being the loss of the Caribbean Cup. I would like to see that competition retained somehow, even as a mere off-FIFA-Calendar (say January) tournament for exhibition purposes. It would still have value as a trophy (realistically, the ONLY trophy) for Caribbean nations to aspire to and as a means for some of them to test their locally based and MLS/USL/NASL based players (the only ones theyd be able to call up on a non-FIFA date) in a competitive environment. But other than that, there's a lot of good in this proposal for the region as a whole. I really look forward to hearing more details about this proposal, particularly with regard to how the qualifying format will work for the World Cup and Gold Cup.
The UEFA Nations League will have the top teams playing each other and the bottom teams playing each other. Has there ever been a World Cup Qualifying format where a confederation had two or more groups of intentionally unequal difficulty in the same round? I hope there's not a World Cup spot reserved for a group with all its teams out of the Top 100 of the FIFA Rankings.
Well the new LoN could have more then 1 trophy (depending on how many leagues there are). Each league could have it's own trophy and the winning teams in each league will be promoted up to the next league (Except the top league of course). So Caribbean teams could still have trophies to win and promotion to gain. I don't see this new LoN replacing WCQ, maybe it helps decide seeds for WCQ and maybe it determines who enters the GC (This is what the UEFA LoN is doing... the 4 winners of each UEFA league earn a EURO spot), but my guess is WCQ, and the HEX (or whatever they came up with) will be separate.