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

Current Elo top 48:

UEFA: 26
COMNEBOL: 9
AFC: 5
CONCACAF: 4
CAF: 4

Scotland are 49th!

 

They say they don't want to expand the number of venues beyond the 12 used in Brazil and Russia. 16 added games means just one or two more games in each venue, which should be feasable. South Africa used 10 venues for 64 games, which on a games-per-stadium basis is almost the same as 12 venues for 80 games.

 

They have to hose South America. Otherwise they couldn't justify WC qualifying, because they would all be at the WC.

 

The regular tenant is the part of the stadium that is typically believed to have little to no ROI for public financing of a stadium--those are the dollars that are presumed to just be taking away from some other entertainment option in that area. It is only the 'events' that bring significant numbers of people from outside the area which bring in new tax dollars.

At any rate, Infantino came out and said he was gratified that the format of the 48 team tournament allowed for the games to be played in the same number of stadiums.
http://af.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idAFKBN14U22Q

It becomes clear that was part of the point. FIFA is much better off with more games per stadium than it is with more stadiums required, as the latter reduces the competition to host, and the former increases it.

 

It's possible the info is wrong or outdated, because I pulled it from wiki. Looking into it here are the results... there are indeed 6 (not 5) top 8 finishes by CONCACAF. I bet wiki hasn't recorded 2014 yet.

1930 USA 3rd place
1938 Cuba 8th
1970 Mexico 6th
1986 Mexico 6th
2002 USA 8th
2014 Costa Rica 8th

Adding in 2014 the results should look like this...

Finished in the t0p 8:
6 CONCACAF
3 CAF
2 AFC
0 OFC

 

Yes it should be AFC... my bad.

 

If you're going to get blown out in every match, you might as well have a sense of humor about it

 

More importantly here are the FIFA top 48
UEFA: 27
COMNEBOL: 8
AFC: 4
CONCACAF: 3
CAF: 6

Teams from 49 to 60 (These teams will be competing for spots)
UEFA: 4
COMNEBOL: 1
AFC: 1
CONCACAF: 1
CAF: 4

 

But one-off events don't come even close to generating the revenue required to offset the construction costs.

 

1. Lets look at the current teams ranked 33-48 to get a sense of the kind of teams that are out there that could join the competition.
Senegal, Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt, S. Korea, Algeria, Romania, Paraguay, Sweden, Greece, Czech Republic, Serbia, Japan, Denmark, Australia, DR. Congo

That is it. All decent teams that would not ruin the entire competition if you had to watch them play. They aren't going to get destroyed every game. And some will even have world class players. The question will be about who gets the new spots.

2. Groups of 3 will be bad in the fact that your team is only guaranteed 2 games, but its going to increase the intensity of those 2 games. Basically if you lose 1 game you could be out. When you play 3 games in a group, you can have a an awful game and still have 2 more games to salvage a place in the next round. Now every game is almost a knockout. I think we'll see more big teams get knocked out early.

3. The game popularity is growing, more money has been invested into youth development than ever before, and the world is much bigger. In 1930 there was a 13 team tournament, but there was only an estimated 1.9B people on the planet. That is 1 team entered for every 146M people. 2026 estimated world population is 8..1B or 1 team per 168M people. The tournament has grown as the world and its interest in the game has grown.

4. You can call this a money grab, but who cares? Money is produced by people watching, more people caring about soccer. How is that a bad thing? Look at how interest in the World Cup in the US has transformed our soccer culture. Look at the investments, sponsorships, stadiums, player development, clubs...all that was helped in large part by the US going to the WC. Does Fifa want that to happen in China and India or other Asian countries? Of course! It won't just line peoples pockets it can transform the game in some countries. If the WC never changed and kept with a 13 team tournament forever the US would never have went. And everything we enjoy about US soccer would never have existed. Growing the tournament helped us, why so cynical about it helping another country?

 

Have to disagree with you. China is dead last in their group now and have a long way to go. It doesnt get any easier it they keep loading their club teams with Europeans. Makes it harder to discover actually good chinese players.

It does depend on how many spots Asia gets. If its 7 or less I doubt China making it anytime soon when Uzbekistan, UAE, Saudi are a level above them as well.



China did qualify in '02 but there was also some FIFAness at play with Japan and SK already qualified, the two strongest teams after them Iran and Saudi Arabia were grouped together and China had an easy task in their own group. Kind of like asking USA to qualify in a CONCACAF group while Mexico and Costa Rica are in a different group.

 

I think that's a reasonable request, and there's no harm in asking, but ... hey, have you been hacking my email?!?

 

This Julian guy keeps forwarding them to me

 

While annoying and surely watering down the quality of play in the group phase, I can't get too worked up about it as I think an expanded World Cup is inevitable and unavoidable. And I think the knock-out phase starting with a round of 32 will end up being perfectly fine.

I'm actually more concerned about how this could significantly alter/weaken the confederation qualification process. For CONCACAF, the current Hexagonal would be meaningless. Expand to 8 teams in the final round, just to knock off 1.5 teams so that 6.5 teams* advance? That doesn't make sense either. A 10-team final round like South America would be unwieldy or have to eliminate the 2nd-to-last round to fit into the allotted time frame.

Or, have two simultaneous "Hexagonals" (two groups of 6 each) in which the top 3 from each Hex qualify automatically and the two 4th place teams have a playoff to see who advances to a playoff with another confederation? The top teams like the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. automatically get seeded or drawn into the dual Hexagonals and the minnows have a preliminary play-in round? Might look like this for example:

Hexagonal A: USA, Costa Rica, Trinidad, Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti

Hexagonal B: Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Jamaica, Canada, St. Vincent

Watered down to be sure, but there would still be some adequate competition. BUT, would the US ever play qualifiers against Mexico again? Losing that drama and test would be a shame.


* Footnote: I don't think CONCACAF should get a half qualification spot. 6 automatic spots is plenty. Give the 0.5 spot to South America.

 

UEFA - 20
CAF - 8
Conmebol -8
AFC - 5.5
Concacaf - 5.5
OFC - 1

with current rankings
UEFA - Belgium, Germany, Portugal, Romania, Wales, England, Spain, Netherlands, Austria, Croatia, Slovakia, Italy, Switzerland, Czech Rep, Denmark, Iceland, France, Albania, Ukraine, Bosnia

CAF -Algeria, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, Egypt, Cape Verde, Tunisia, DR Congo

Conmebol - Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Paraguay

AFC - Iran, S. Korea, Japan, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan

Concacaf - Costa Rica, Mexico, USA, Panama, Haiti

playoff - Uzbekistan vs. Curacao

OFC - New Zealand


Now those are just today's rankings. I could see Honduras/Trinidad move up to take over Haiti/Curacao in Concacaf. In Africa Nigeria, Morocco, Cameroon, S. Africa could move up. In Asia China could move up if their development plans take off. In Europe Turkey, Serbia, Russia could move up.

Just for Fun. All fears of Andora vs. San Marino can be put to bed.
GROUP 1
Belgium
Australia
Haiti

GROUP 2
Germany
Japan
Panama

GROUP 3
Portugal
S. Korea
DR Congo

GROUP 4
Wales
Iran
Ghana

GROUP 5
Romania
Argentina
New Zeland

GROUP 6
England
Ecuador
Senegal

GROUP 7
Spain
Peru
Egypt

GROUP 8
Netherlands
Uruguay
Cape Verde

GROUP 9
Croatia
United States
Ivory Coast

GROUP 10
Austria
Saudi Arabia
Mexico

GROUP 11
Slovakia
Colombia
Tunisia

GROUP 12
Italy
Chile
Uzbekestan

GROUP 13
Switzerland
Bosnia
Costa Rica

GROUP 14
Czech Rep.
Ukraine
Algeria

GROUP 15
Denmark
Albania
Brazil

GROUP 16
Iceland
France
Paraguay

 

^ Fears put to bed? We're in the Group of Death!

 

God damn it we still get a group of death. This format sucks.

 

Even more "fun" when the one team is not done, but the two teams in the final game can advance with a 0-0 draw. This plan sucks.

 

Yes, our qualification process will change drastically in 2024/25... and with our federation president advocating for a overhaul so smaller countries get more WCQ games then this further will change things. There is an old thread dedicated to this, but having a possible 6.5 spots changes things.

Here is the current CONCACAF WCQ format

1. Round One. Teams ranked 26–35 will play-off to reduce the number of entrants to 30.
2. Round Two. 6 groups of 4 teams. This round includes the 5 qualifiers from the preliminary round plus teams ranked 7–25. The top team in each group advances to the next stage.
3. Round Three (Semifinal round). 3 groups of 4. Teams ranked 1–6 face off against the 6 group winners from the previous round. The top two in each group advance.
4. Round Four (Hexagonal). The top two teams in each group from the semifinal round compete in one group of 6. The top three teams advance to the World Cup finals, while the 4th place team advances to an intercontinental play-off.

Here are 2 possibilities.

SCENARIO 1
Top 5 teams get a bye to the second round.

1. Round One. Teams ranked 6 - 35. 5 groups of 6. First place teams advance to second round. (reduces entrants to 10 total... 5 bye teams plus 5 group winners)
   
2. Round Two. 10 team playoff (similar to CONMEBOL). Top 6.5 advance to WC

SCENARIO 2
No bye

1. Round One. 7 groups of 5. Top 2 teams advance to second round.
2. Round Two. 14 team playoff (similar to CONMEBOL). Top 6.5 advance to WC

In scenario 1, smaller nations will get a minimum of 10 WCQ games. The 10 team playoff almost guarantees match-ups between CR, Mexico and the US.

In scenario 2, smaller nations will get a minimum of 8 WCQ games. Again the 14 team playoff almost guarantees match-ups between CR, Mexico and the US.

I am not sure if these scenarios will work with the allotted FIFA dates. But we now know something is going to change (at least for 2026), and we know the CONCACAF president wants more games for the minnows, and these 2 formats might work.

Edit: And I am not an advocate of the 5 team group, but if a 3 team group can work, then a 5 team group can work too.

 

I have a feeling that there will be no more draws.

 

You mean tournament rules will not allow draws?

 

yes (I am guessing they will do, or should do this). This is the only way to limit colluding in the final game.

Examples:
Game 1: Team A beats B
Game 2: Team A beats C
Game 3: Team B & C fight for second place

Game 1: Team A losses to B
Game 2: Team A beats C
Game 3: Team C is fighting to tie (Team A) for second place and team B is fighting to win the group (so they don't tie team A)

Game 1: Team A losses to B
Game 2: Team A losses to C
Game 3: Team B & C are fighting for first and second place

Edit, edit: They could end up with a 3 way tie. With all 3 teams winning 1 game. There could be colluding in the last game depending what the tie breaker is.

 

They have floated the idea of having PK shootouts after every tied match, which can be a quasi-solution to the fact that 3-team groups are highly susceptible to ties in the table that can't be broken by the usual GD/GS tiebreakers. There are a few ways to implement this:

1) Count regulation wins and shootout wins the same, so that everybody just has a W-L record. I'd say this is bad because the they really aren't the same, and this would increase the likelihood of getting groups with a three-way tie at 1-1.
2) Hold a shootout after any drawn match, but the shootout result has no effect unless the two teams end up tied in the table. You could apply the shootout result as the first tiebreaker or use it after GD/GS.
3) Use international hockey's point system--3 points for regulation win, split points 2/1 in a shootout. I haven't thought much about the mathematical implications of this.
4) Use the old MLS system--3 points for regulation win, 1 point for shootout win, no points for any loss. Not likely to go with this one. In a 3-team group it might be functionally equivalent to option 3.

None of this gets rid of another messy tie scenario, where all three teams win one game by the same score. This happened in Canada's group in the 2002 Gold Cup. All three games were 2-0 results, so it was a flat-footed 3-way tie with 3 points, 2 GF, 2 GA, and they drew lots to pick two teams to advance.

 

I agree with the rest of what you've said, but they don't do this. China is one of those leagues where a handful of players are getting all the press, but the rank-and-file of the league is Chinese. They have a 4+1 foreigner limit (the extra one is if it's an Asian player), which is about to go down to 3+1. They actually have one of the higher domestic proportions around.

When it gets to high-five to low-six-digit numbers of people coming into a city and dropping four-digit amounts of money, it can help. That adds up quick if it happens several times.

 

I agree with the rest of what you've said, but they don't do this. China is one of those leagues where a handful of players are getting all the press, but the rank-and-file of the league is Chinese. They have a 4+1 foreigner limit (the extra one is if it's an Asian player), which is about to go down to 3+1. They actually have one of the higher domestic proportions around.

When it gets to high-five to low-six-digit numbers of people coming into a city and dropping four-digit amounts of money, it can help. That adds up quick if it happens several times.