Wonder if Fox knew this was coming, because the competitions they have starting with the nations league 2024 and Euro 24 just went up HUGE in value https://www.espn.com/soccer/uefa-na...o-join-expanded-uefa-nations-league-from-2024 Key Points: This is a memorandum of cooperation. It means they want to do it, they intend to do it, but haven't yet guaranteed it's going to happen. Still can fall through. But with the money on the table, and premier matchups, I dont think it will fall through 6 CONEMBOL teams will join Nations League A Groups in 2024 the remaining 4 teams will join Nations League B Groups (details from: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/uefa-working-with-conmebol-joint-nations-league-2021-12-17/) All games will be played in Europe.
Wow! Is there anything FIFA could do to stop this? I'm thinking they wouldn't like such a development as UEFA Nations League A would be a pretty prestigious competition
Spitballing here, but I could imagine UEFA reaching out to CONCACAF and offering the USA and Mexico spots in League A, just for the TV rights value. That would bring the total to 24 League A teams, 6 groups of 4, winners advance, top two in rankings get bye to semi finals, others play a game to make the semifinal. Then you'd have the next rank of teams (Canada, Costa Rica, etcetera) in the B and C class, and the minnows would help give the D league some numbers.
I'm sure they'd love to (it basically makes their every two year WC plan dead on arrival), but I'm not sure they CAN do anything, as tournaments have been offering out-of-confederation teams an invite for a while now, (as the Combined CONCACAF-CONEMBOL Copa Americas also demonstrated). This may be another reason to bring in CONCACAF, the Caribbean nations would help make up a lot of votes if they can be convinced to go along with it (and with the money involved, I'm pretty sure they can)
I agree. If they can nail down CONMEBOL I wonder if they will shoot for CONCACAF next for US, Mexico and crazy TV money
Because your federations are run corruptly and thus will do anything for $. They sadly don’t care about South American supporters and will play in Europe for more $. Not saying its right but that would answer your question about the point of doing it.
Money is of course the main motive here. There is also a lot of politics involved, I think. UEFA and CONMEBOL are against the biennial WC and this proposal seems to me as basically a threat to FIFA: "You go any further with this biennial WC nonsense, and we'll implement this inter-Confed Nations League." But I think it would also make CONMEBOL teams better prepared for the WC. As things are currently, they get very little experience playing against UEFA teams.
In the 'old days' (pre-1994) this used to be one of the factors that, I felt, made the World Cup so special and unique. South American teams had their own style, very different than the Europeans. The Mundial brought about fantastic unfamiliar stylistic matchups between the two continents. IMO, this has been lost since the EU labor laws and Bosman ruling of the mid-90s helped allow South American players - many of whom aren't even on their respective national teams - to play their club futbol in Europe and, hence, lose their identity. Although I think it could even go further back to when Serie A reopened its borders to foreign players in 1980-81.