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

I'd hardly call the 20th best team in Europe "top shelf" but certainly better than the vast majority of middling countries from other confederations

 

Great, we get to watch 16 New Zealands waste everyone's time with boring, anti-football as Messi once called it

 

I enjoyed New Zealand drawing Italy.
Still one of my favorite memories of that 2010 World Cup.

But true, I do not like anti-futbol in general. Just saying that there might not be as many blowouts as people think.

When push comes to shove I rather see anti-futbol than a blowout though.

 

LOL

you act as if ALL 16 additional teams are just going to be horrible, and that isn't the case.

Many of them will be competitive. Some from Uefa and Conembol by the way.

 

Most of them will not be competitive. We already end up with a half dozen barely-competitive teams as it is

 

Glad you have a crystal ball to see into the future.

 

Doesn't take a crystal ball to see the obvious

 

There have been obvious bad teams who have pulled off upsets and draws in past tournaments.
Knowing all your team has to do is go to spot kicks and get points could make things even more interesting for "all or nothing" type of situations.

It is hard to judge 6 years before it is implemented how teams will react and adapt.

 

Greece 2004

 

Just to jump in here, that's why I said 6 additional bad teams. Not saying all 16 will get rolled over. I'm allowing for up to 10 of the 16 "new" teams to be still somewhat competitive. And that also takes into account really bad teams that might have a surprising day like North Korea v Brasil in 2010. I think that's being very generous on my part ( considering that there simply isn't a lot of depth in the 3 confederations where the vast majority of these 16 additional teams will come from, beyond the group of teams that already regularly quality).

 

Greece are well above the caliber of teams we are talking about when referring to the 16 additional WC teams that will qualify starting 2026. Greece were generally strong in qualifying for major tournaments in the decade that followed their 2004 success, proving they were easily one of the best 12 or so teams in UEFA during that period in time.

 

I really don’t understand the mindset here. The fact there’s been an occasional close game by a bottom tier qualifier doesn’t mean expanding by 16 teams is going to create a better tournament. It’s a certainty that the majority of these teams will be bad and do nothing but bog down the World Cup. It’s a terrible idea

 

Teams that could have been an asset in the 2018 World Cup included Italy, Holland, Wales, Scotland, Greece, Turkey, Israel, the Ukraine, USA, Chile, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, New Zealand, Honduras, Jamaica, North Korea, and China.

And of course there was Syria who lost in a playoff to Australia.

 

You listed 8 UEFA teams yet FIFA didn't add that many spots to UEFA's allocation. After expansion only 3 extra UEFA teams can qualify; not a huge impact on qualification and big UEFA teams could still falter.

 

Yeah, qualifying will be a bore everywhere outside of UEFA.

 

Yes and no. It will be a bore in the sense that the big teams in most confeds will be virtually assured qualification so you won’t have the suspense of wondering if the US/Mexico/South Korea will qualify or not, even if they aren’t at their best. CONMEBOL in particular will be very boring since probably 70% of their confed will qualify.

On the other hand, it will be fun to see which smaller teams make the cup, even if we know that their contribution at the final tournament will be very limited.

But yeah on the whole I agree that expanding the tournament makes qualifying less interesting.

 

Yeah, I'm a little less bothered about CAF's extra spots since they always seem to leave at least one or two good teams at home. I think they are one confed where there isn't as much of a dropoff between the teams they send to the WC currently and the teams that will be added.

 

South American Qualifying will always be interesting to me.
Heck, CONMEBOL friendlies are usually heated battles with tempers flaring and dramatic grinding results.

 

Good matches, but they will be virtually meaningless.

 

Let's stop overstating the value of group stage games or the weakness of lower ranked teams. Germany's rout of Brazil in 2014 hurt the reputation and enjoyability of the WC much more than any group stage blowouts could. Was the 2018 WC worse off because Panama lost by 5 goals to England? Also, we do realize that a 32 team WC doesn't have the top 32 ranked teams, right? Based on the rankings at the time of the 2018 WC: South Korea (67) beat Germany (1), Senegal (45) beat Poland (8), Saudi Arabia (61) beat Egypt (21), Japan (57) beat Colombia (11), and Russia(70) made it to the QF. Rankings change, but there's more depth in the confederations than they're being given credit for. The current Asian champions (Qatar-which beat S. Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Japan at the Asian Cup) are ranked 5th in AFC, the current African champions (Algeria) are ranked 3rd in CAF, and the 2017 CAF champions (Cameroon) are currently eighth. Guatemala was ranked 95th (11th in CONCACAF behind Antigua & Barbuda) at the time they beat the U.S. in 2016 and T&T were ranked 83rd when they won against the U.S. in 2017. March Madness has less quality and parity in basketball terms than anything a 48 team World Cup would resemble, and yet it's become one of the most popular postseason tournaments in American sports for the same reasons people are knocking an expanded WC. Obviously it's not a fair comparison. A 64 team straight knockout (or GS) competition for a global tournament like the World Cup would be a logistical nightmare and an unrealistic commitment for professional players with club contracts, but a 48 team tournament with less group games and a 32 team knockout round is as close as it gets.

I'd be surprised if the 12x4 format was ever seriously considered. First, the 16x3 option will have exclusive times for every game, which maximizes the benefits of expanding the tournament in the first place. Secondly, for those worried about lopsided games, the 12x4 option would give weaker teams an extra game that could expose them to blowouts and lead to overly defensive play, especially since GD would play a large role in the 3rd place teams that would qualify to the knockout round. Would you like to see a team tie all three group games, qualify for the knockout rounds, and then win the tournament (Portugal, UEFA Euro 2016)? The 16x3 option provides less incentive to go for draws. Lastly, for those worried of collusion, using PKs after tied games could settle that issue. Even without PKs, the tournament moves straight to the knockout stage after the first two games, so coming in first and second actually means something (unlike the 1982 Germany-Austria game which moved into a second group stage).

I don't think there's much interest from casual fans in many group games even in a 32 team tournament. Do you think games like Denmark vs Peru or Serbia vs Switzerland had huge global TV audiences in 2018? A hypothetical Jamaica vs India would probably outdraw many group games based on the numbers within India alone, where 2% of the population is larger than all of Scandinavia, where three 2018 World Cup teams came from. Same applies to China. Having more teams creates more storylines and obviously boosts interest in soccer, especially from the countries involved.

EDIT: Don't mind me, just correcting the WC year. - Paul Calixte

What metric would you use? There were three more UCL blowouts this week. The 64 team speculation is just a slippery slope fallacy not rooted in reality. Three confederations have already moved to 24 team continental championships with positive results. Is UEFA switching to a 32 team Euro? At that point you could give half the teams byes to the World Cup, ruining the qualification process. 64 teams would also require an additional 16 games and who knows how many more venues. No one is signing up for that.

Soccer is the most followed sport in the world and is synonymous with the World Cup. Sports like rugby, cricket, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey are the top sports in a handful of countries and bring in more global interest from their participation in the Olympics (except cricket) than they do from their standalone international tournaments. These sports can't match the influence and interest that soccer carries around the world, so expansion isn't going to broaden their appeal. Because the WC is the biggest sporting event in the world, FIFA can leverage the tournament as a force multiplier in creating interest and grow the game in places where it isn't the most popular sport. For example, baseball is Panama's national sport and cricket is T&T's national sport, yet both countries had a national holiday when they qualified for the WC. Basketball is the most popular sport in the Philippines, but they'd probably have a national holiday if they qualified for the WC. So this is about making the World Cup more global, not more competitive. Giving countries like Canada, China, and New Zealand a better chance at qualification helps the overall development of the game around the world. Look at it this way: at the 2016 Summer Olympics, the IOC had athletes from 206 member countries participate; only 86 countries (NOCs) won a medal and 71 NOCs have never won any medal. Has it ruined the experience to invite so many athletes that have no chance at winning a medal?

 

No because there weren't many such blowouts as you pointed-out. The occasional blowout is fine. Its actually kind of fun to see a blowout if you've just watched ten 1-0 or 0-0-type matches in-a-row. Its when blowouts become semi-regular that they are a big problem.

And when its 48 it won't be the top 48 ranked teams.

Like I said, I agreed with the concluding point so no need to spend much time debating this. I just noticed that a lot of WC group-stage games saw a team win by exactly 3 goals, especially in 2014. So defining 'blowout' by 4 or more just seemed a bit suspicious. Not like there is some agreed definition of "Blowout".
Also the fact that WC games are played in a neutral venue tends to even things out. When a team that is already a bit better than their opponent also gets home advantage the conditions are more conducive for a blowout.

But I am fine with the concluding point that there is more disparity across the 32 CL teams.

 

Sounds like you're a fan of more teams and shorter group stages. I agree the format could be better. I'd rather see UEFA, CAF, and AFC switch to 8 groups of three and have a 16 team knockout stage.