World Cup Expansion to 48 Teams (Update: FIFA Council Agrees 2026 Slot Allocation)

Discussion in 'FIFA and Tournaments' started by shizzle787, Dec 4, 2015.

  1. Rickdog

    Rickdog Member+

    Jun 16, 2010
    Santiago, Chile
    Club:
    CD Colo Colo
    Nat'l Team:
    Chile
    Actually, Conmebol for 1982 got only 3 spots.
    Argentina went on their own for being the WC champion of 1978.

    Till the 2002 WC, WC champions got an automatic spot for the next WC, not needing to play any qualifier match. Same went for WC hosts. Only since the 2006 WC, recent past WC champions started taking part in their respectful Confederation WC qualifiers.

    Now the other issue, you pretend to overlook is that for the 1982 WC qualifiers from Conmebol, Chile had to win its place by beating the Conmebol Champion, which at the time was Paraguay (not Brazil, as they had lost at the semi's against them), whom had won the Copa America final of 1979. And for the case of Peru, in the same process, they were the clear favourites, as it wasn't for nothing that they had made the quarters in the 1978 WC (which was played in 2 groups of 4), and basicly the same golden team, that also made the quarters for the 1970 WC and whom won Copa America of 1975; the fact they didn't make it to the Copa America final of 1979, was because they had lost at the semi's vs. Chile.

    So the Conmebol draw for the 1982 WC qualifiers, put both recent finalists of Copa America in the same group, and only one of them, was going to get the tickets to the WC. And well, was our turn to get them (as for the next WC qualifiers, they got pay back, and eliminated us in return).
     
  2. Metropolitan

    Metropolitan Member+

    Paris Saint Germain
    France
    Sep 5, 2005
    Paris
    Club:
    Paris Saint Germain FC
    Nat'l Team:
    France
    #3777 Metropolitan, Jul 31, 2018
    Last edited: Jul 31, 2018
    Actually, everyone is satisfied with the way things are. Brits can brag about their tradition and feel proud about it, and the rest of the world benefits from a considerably weaker representation of Great Britain in football. So there's indeed no reason for this to change.

    As for the debate about African representation, I would just like to say that English people have really never done anything to promote football worldwide in the first place. The real question is how someone like Stanley Rous became the President of FIFA to begin with.

    To put a long story short, The English FA continuously fought FIFA, and after failing to kill it for good from the inside in the early years, decided to leave it again in 1928. After world war 2, continental football was in ruins in Europe, whereas it was still quite wealthy in Britain. The English FA basically took over a totally broke FIFA in 1946, and therefore reintegrated it. The English leadership on world football has lead to a pretty conservative management from Arthur Drewry and Stanley Rous. And indeed, everything has been overthrown again when João Havelange became President in 1974. There are tons of interesting details on how Britain lost control over the sport, but I won't expand further here.
     
  3. BocaFan

    BocaFan Member+

    Aug 18, 2003
    Queens, NY
    The home nations are strongly against that idea. Hopefully the merge will never happen (it won't).
     
  4. bigsoccertst1

    bigsoccertst1 Member+

    United States
    Sep 22, 2017
    Cool. I see how you think FIFA would gamble, if it expanded CAF's 0.5 WC ticket to a whole WC slot.

    Note that other confederations were repeating offenders.
    Despite their continuous withdrawals, both Conmebol and UEFA WC slots were not penalized for the 3 decades shown below.

    Historical context of Qualifier withdrawals, up to 1966:
    (withdrawals / participants)

    1930: invitational tournament; no qualifiers, no slots.
    1934: Conmebol (2/4), UEFA (3/23).
    1938: Conmebol (1/2), UEFA (1/22), Asia (1/2), Africa (1/1), Concacaf (6/7).
    1950: Conmebol (3/7), UEFA (5/18), Asia (4/4).
    1954: Conmebol (1/4), UEFA (3/26), Asia (1/3).
    1958: Conmebol (1/9), UEFA (2/30), Asia (2/3)*, Africa (2/2)*.
    1962: UEFA (4/30), Asia (1/3), Africa (2/6), Concacaf (1/8).
    1966: UEFA (3/34)***, Asia (1/2), Africa (16/16)**.
    notes (open)

    Egypt, United Arab Republic - counted as Africa.
    Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Israel, Cyprus, Ethiopia - counted as UEFA.
    *1 Asian + 2 Africans - refused to play Israel (1958 qualifiers).
    **15 CAF nations + banned South Africa (1966 qualifiers).
    ***1 "UEFA" team boycotted 1966 qualifiers: Syria.


    Something was wrong at FIFA (1963) when an emerging confederation was half UEFA's size, and its champion could face its banned member at intercontinental playoffs.

    Asia+Africa+Oceania had 1 WC slot (6.25% presence at 1966 WC).

    Good to see the improvement made since then.
     
  5. Hideo

    Hideo Member

    Newcastle United and Shimizu S-Pulse
    Apr 30, 2010
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    You do realise that Robbie Keane is Irish don't you? Ireland are not part of the UK. What on earth does Ireland have to do with a unified UK team?
     
    unclesox repped this.
  6. Oddo26

    Oddo26 Member

    Jul 12, 2014
    New York City
    Club:
    Newcastle United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Uruguay
    My bad. We all make mistakes.
     
  7. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    The expansion to 48 teams will give to a team like Croatia even more chances to repeat a run as we will get seeded regularly and we will be more dangerous to the usual big nations on a k.o stage than on group stages where they can calculate us like it happened few times between 2004 and 2014 :)

    Also after the 3rd place from 98 and this final the country gained confidence to build from this and come back for more.
     
  8. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    Imagine a yugoslavian team representing 15-20 million people with some of the best serbian bosnian, montenegro or slovenian players joining the croatian finalists? Just like some from kolarov tadic mitrovic milinkovic-savic oblak savic dzeko pjanic replacing the weakest positions in croatian squad or giving more class and solutions to the bench.

    With the world class players coming from our republics since 20-25 years we would be a contender for the title on regular basis.
     
  9. BocaFan

    BocaFan Member+

    Aug 18, 2003
    Queens, NY
    Difficult to predict how the format change will impact the more talented teams. But on paper it would seem easier (relatively speaking) to reach the final 32 for all UEFA and CONMEBOL teams starting in 2026, and tougher for all teams from other confederations.

    The max # of teams from UEFA + CONMEBOL under the current format is 18 teams. I'd be shocked if there are less than 20 making-up the last 32 in 2026, and quite possible we will see 22.
     
    Nico777 repped this.
  10. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    #3785 Nico777, Aug 27, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2018
    Think the same. But then i believe that an Uefa dark horse nation like ours got something that the nations like chile colombia or mexico from concacaf lack in world cup.

    Even when Mexico was reaching round 16 constantly or Chile 2-3 times in the last decade and Croatia failed at group stage some of us knew and warned that when things would click we would go deep while Mexico would still be stucked at the same stage...

    And this will happen again...now with the 48 teams format and the possibility to reach the k.o stages faster we will be more in our comfort zone cause we like to upset the big nations and we won't face the tie=elimination dilemma that we had to deal with several times.

    A nation like Serbia that struggled for a while in world cup will be much more dangerous with this kind of format you will see.
     
  11. Footsatt

    Footsatt Member+

    Apr 8, 2008
    Michigan
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The new FIFA rank could shift teams considerably. Without the Confederation Multiplier the top teams in each region could move up the ranks. Teams like Tunisia, Senegal, Congo, Ghana, Mexico, USA, Costa Rica, Iran, Australia, Japan, and S Korea could all move up the ranks, and push some of the UEFA teams down the ranks.

    Currently Croatia sits at 4, but UEFA is tough and Croatia could easily slide back down to the high teens (where it has been prior to 2018) or even worse since the confederation multiplier will not help UEFA and CONMEBOL the same way it use to. Seeding will not be guaranteed for UEFA and CONMEBOL teams like it was in the past. AFC, CAF, CONCACAF could all have 1 or 2 seeded teams by the time of 2026. I bet even by 2022 there could be 1 AFC, CAF and CONCACAF seeded team.

    Basically this new ranking system could change the seeding.
     
  12. Paul Calixte

    Paul Calixte Moderator
    Staff Member

    Orlando City SC
    Apr 30, 2009
    Miami, FL
    Club:
    Orlando City SC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But what happens if Croatia get relegated in the UEFA Nations League and then end up stuck with fixtures against lower-quality opponents during their time in League B purgatory?
     
  13. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    I don't think it would have such a big influence....beside the nations league there will still be the qualifiers and the euro to face big nations.
     
  14. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    Croatia didn't need to be seeded to top groups ahead of germany spain and argentina in the last 10 years anyway. But at least hey can rely on this world cup final to maintain a certain position for a while.
     
    Footsatt repped this.
  15. Blondo

    Blondo Member+

    Sep 21, 2013
    FIFA's "importance of match" factor is quite low for NL (group) games and it's only 4 games/group, so yes it won't have such a big influence. Also, I agree that there are plenty of higher yielding/high risk games before 2026 (Qatar2022, EURO2020 and 2024, all the qualifiers for these tournaments + 2026 WCQs). Seeing there'll be a group P in 2026 Croatia's chances of being among the top seeds are fair and even if unseeded Croatia won't have to face other UEFA teams in the group stage (could even be drawn into Canada's group; e.g. group C: Canada, Croatia and China).

    PS ahead of the upcoming Preliminary Draw for Qatar2022 (July 2019) there aren't that many games. In the 2018/19 NL Croatia got a great draw, of all the League A groups the one Croatia is in has the smallest points gap between top and bottom teams (both England and Spain having plenty of points and together with Croatia they won't harm each other's ranking too badly). It's looking like Croatia will be a top seed in July. The Final Draw will be in April 2022, it's still early doors for that one.
     
    Nico777 repped this.
  16. Pipiolo

    Pipiolo Member+

    Jul 19, 2008
    Nat'l Team:
    Argentina
    Twenty teams is only one more than at WCs 14 and 18.

    Croatia had a historic run but other than Perisic they collectively shat their pants in the final, what a disappointment as we were rooting for them. Other NTs will not fear them once 2019 starts.
     
  17. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    We played with an injured goalkeeper and the first world cup final for a country independant only since 90ies....
    Anyway we are proud of them...
    And being feared or not won't prevent us to come back soon or later...just a matter of time as it has always been.
     
  18. BocaFan

    BocaFan Member+

    Aug 18, 2003
    Queens, NY
    For a WC hosted by CONCACAF the max # is 18.
     
  19. Footsatt

    Footsatt Member+

    Apr 8, 2008
    Michigan
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Uefa teams can’t knock out uefa teams in the group of 2026. But when is the last time all the uefa teams advance same goes for conmebol...

    Teams that did not advance:
    2018
    Peru
    Iceland, Serbia, Germany, Poland

    2014
    Ecuador
    Croatia, Spain, Italy, England, B&H, Portugal, Russia

    My guess is around 16, maybe 18. It’s true 2/3 advance opposed to half in the past, but there is also 1 less game. There is less room for error... one upset victory can send a team home.
     
  20. BocaFan

    BocaFan Member+

    Aug 18, 2003
    Queens, NY
    That's not many. And you're comparing a group-stage that filters the # of teams from 32 to 16 with one that filters from 48 to 32.

    I think certainly Serbia, Germany, Poland and Peru proved they were good enough to avoid last place in an easier group.
     
  21. Footsatt

    Footsatt Member+

    Apr 8, 2008
    Michigan
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    With the new 3 team group format it’s just a guess...

    This is all speculation but I don’t think Serbia would of made it. After 2 games they were on 3pts. Brazil and Switzerland were on 4pts after 2 games.

    Germany probably gets out, but both Mexico and S Korea beat this Germany so who knows.

    Poland 2 games in was on zero points. They were beat by Senegal and Colombia. They did beat Japan so who knows with this one.

    I’ll give you Peru... they were not good enough to beat Denmark or France, but they beat Australia easily. 3 team group they should advance.
     
  22. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    You forget something...
    Serbia is already in top 32...and even ended in top 24...

    So you will have a hard time convincing us that serbia will struggle against the 32-48 range i think...

    The 48 teams world cup will bring lot of very weak teams in the tournament.

    The difference is that a nation like serbia with their golden generation coming will be much more dangerous in a knock out stage starting at top 32...
     
    HansWorldCup repped this.
  23. Footsatt

    Footsatt Member+

    Apr 8, 2008
    Michigan
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The FIFA ranking is going to change this cycle... there is no uefa or conmebol confedration multiplier. The rank will be vastly different in 2 or so years.
     
  24. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    They did OK before the breakup with two fourth places and four quarter-finals.

     
  25. Nico777

    Nico777 Member+

    Olympique de marseille
    Croatia
    Oct 19, 2017
    Yes they did ok but the best generation of players came at the moment of the break up and these last years.
     

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