The lower teams still have to travel to face eachother. It's the mid-range and low-level ones who don't have the resources to do this every year. They wouldn't have to do this every year, just every four years. There is still overhead. The costs of overseeing all these additional countries in a remote part of the world (even in relation to AFC) is not as clear cut as you make it. I think my point about teams being eliminated 3 years before the tournament is even played completely went by you. That's how it stands now. Add in a 5th round, and they'll probably be getting eliminated within months of the previous World Cup ! That's not an issue for you? Two things that would counter act playing these games immediately following the WC as you believe they would. Qualification would start as it starts now. You push the match dates back, because you are no longer playing an intercontinental qualifier. You can also on your matchdays play two matches on fixture dates instead of one which seems to be the case in AFC where UEFA, CONMEBOL, and CONCACAF play two matches on a Saturday and Wednesday on a lot of match days in AFC the teams only play on one of those dates. Right now the 4 rounds works well enough... there are 2 head-head rounds (I wish there was only 1) before the first group stage. Adding in a 3rd head-head makes it just sound like we're not even giving these Associations a chance. So this begs the question again... other than making the world map look prettier... what is the point? What is it you really think benefits world football? What are you hoping to accomplish? The point is to make world football better. That's always the point in doing things to better the game. This benefits world football by giving countries that don't get to play decent competition a chance, it included them in the world game instead of excluding them now. Overall it would weaken AFC at the beginning, but those OFC countries would have just as good of a chance of improving as the ASEAN teams do.