News: FIFA to expand World Cup to 48 teams in 2026, impact upon the USA

By then I'll be too old and cynical to care.

 

When I went to the article and saw the picture, my reaction was: "Holy guacamole, PitBull is head of FIFA!"

 

Essentially guarantees that outside of countries like England and the US, future WC's will be multi-nation affairs.

Even the US bid will seemly be a tri-country bid if FIFA has its way.

 

Three times the bribery!

 

"Mister, I'm already there."

 

2 out of 3 teams qualify from the group to the knockout rounds. I hate that format.

 

Money's going to ruin everything on the planet.

 

Stupid idea.

I love whisky so let's add 50% more water. Will be 50% better!

 

Is there no stopping the rush to stupidity?

(Purely rhetorically speaking, of course.)

 

will comment in one second

 

You said that a minute ago!

Edit: Finally, after 8 long minutes - very troubling ...

 

Mr. Worldwide is trying to make the World Cup live up to its name, that's all.

 

Going to???

It is a Dewar's and water already made, that is all, how can it not make the whiskey better.

 

Well it was 10 and I am shocked this is for real. I literally thought this was a joke. But sure lets go ahead. More spots for Africa can't be a bad thing. It is madness!! They must watch that FIFA movie starring Tim Roth everyday and then decide to do dumb shit like this. All I can think about is this.


Btw, Does the winner and host still have to qualify?

 

My post was a joke, but the idea isn't, I'm afraid. It's the sort of thing you expect one of our posters to come up with, without thinking through all the potential ramifications.

 

I'd be okay if it were this format next year but hopefully we won't need extra spots by 2026, lol.

 

Although I wonder whether the idea isn't to have the same number of venues, only hosting more games per venue.

Brazil had 12, so in an 80 match WC, each would host an average of 6+2/3rds games (instead of the 5+1/3rd from 2014). That sounds doable to me with the current number of venues, and I wonder if part of the idea for FIFA isn't that, with the extra games on offer, they think countries can better justify the building of stadiums.

 

Everybody qualifies yay!

 

There isn't a single part of this decision that doesn't go back to FIFA thinking there's more opportunity for bribery/money/profit for FIFA.

15 extra games in a stadium that costs a few hundred million dollars doesn't make it any better of an investment.

 

This is going to make quantification so boring now. A hex might be not needed if 5-6 teams get in from Concacaf.

which also means any likely US Mexico qualifiers will not happen.

A cycle now could be reduced to meaningless qualifiers and then one bad set of pks in the first game of the 3 team group, and the cycle is over.

This is awful

 

It's stupid, obviously. At least if you are thinking about the World Cup as an athletic competition. The degree of stupidousity depends on some of the details. Some obvious questions would be how would seeding go after the initial round. The draw is going to be even more of a determinate than it was before. With three teams in a group, one lucky/unlucky ball pop makes or breaks your opening round. Then the draw for the knockout rounds seems just as arbitrary. Or even more so.

There will be more opportunity for upsets, which could be good for the US, I guess. But clearly the overall effect is going to be a watered down level of play. (i.e. last summer's Euros.)

If they had to expand, 40 teams with 8 groups of five would have worked better. This plan has all the draw backs of that one and none of the benefits. Well, except for the fact they think more teams/games makes them more money. That and they don't anger the big euro clubs with more games wearing out their star players.

So what was a good tournament format is now a big commercial with a revenue stream for fifa.

yay.

 

The CONCACAF president will make sure an all North American World Cup happens and you can be damn sure Canada will be hosting some games too.

This dilutes the product and it's simply because of greed. FIFA is the same as it was under Blatter, nothing has changed at all. The EUROS this past summer were poor, far too many teams. You might have seen the rumored spots for each continent. Asia was like 9.5. Hmm... wonder why? China. $$$

You're essentially killing international soccer. Qualifying is rendered meaningless.

 

Other bad possibilities. I assume the draw would put a team like the US typically in a group with a better equal or better and a team they should beat if they played well. So if the schedule puts that beatable opponent first then the team's world cup comes down to that one game.

It will be six months prepping for one contest. It's not really a tournament anymore. It's a one off game followed by a single elimination round, where success is going to be more or less based on the draw.

Lots of the teams/nations that supposedly benefit (those from the expanded number of bids) won't be around long enough to feel art of the tournament.

Honestly, who besides the suits cashing the checks would think this is a good idea?