I do not have enough superlatives to describe how much I hate this. It keeps getting brought up, and I keep saying the same thing: No. F*** No. We want our national identities recognized just as much as you do. We would lose that right with a West Indies soccer team. I am a Jamaican/Vincentian, not a Trini or a Haitian or a Bajan. I want to support MY country, not some bland, generic conglomeration. You get to go support the USA, or Canada, or whomever? We want to support Trinidad/Haiti/Jamaica. That's it. "Ok, but what about cricket? It works there!" Nobody cares about cricket (and I mean this, it's declined substantially in popularity across the Caribbean itself and the UK-based Caribbean diaspora since my grandfather's days). The game has limited following outside of smaller east Caribbean islands + Guyana. Jamaica, while home to some solid cricketers, doesn't big up the game much. The French, Dutch and Spanish speaking islands don't care at all. That apathy is what allows the West Indies team to compete - the little islands out east who love cricket agree on the merger and nobody with any weight bothers to correct them because nobody cares. This does not work in football, because what cricket does is irrelevant for football. You are not getting Jamaicans to give up the Reggae Boyz or the Haitians to sacrifice Les Grenadiers to get packaged in with a dozen different countries that they don't have a sense of shared nationhood with. Especially not in a world where nations their size or smaller (Croatia, Costa Rica, Uruguay) are regularly going to World Cups flying their own flags and winning games. Imagine being a Haitian hearing the Serbs and Croats each get to keep their national teams, but you don't get one. Jamaicans lose the Reggae Boyz, but the Welsh, who are not even a sovereign state and have the same population, still get to go fly their flag. Absolutely mad. The mere suggestion should be a fineable offense. Infuriating every time. (I know nobody here meant any offense, so obviously nobody should be thinking about fines, I just get worked up about the topic every time. Rant over)
As for the combined Copa America, this is a fine idea. I enjoyed the Centenario. I'd just say that if it goes forward, leave the second Gold Cup alone. The Gold Cup doesn't mean a lot to Americans but for most of the region, it's a World Cup. They don't get tournament experience anywhere else and even nations that might start getting more WC experience after expansion (ex: Jamaica) still value the tournament time, exposure, and revenue in a way USA + Mex just can't anymore. Let them have it. Send your B-teams if it's not interesting, the kids need reps too. Also, from a Caribbean and Central American perspective, if this is more than a one-off, I'd push to expand beyond 16. Try and get more of the region involved. Go for 24. Hopefully the CFU and UNCAF are angling for something like that. Getting 9 teams involved beyond the USA + Mex + Canada means a lot of higher level tournament experience for countries that never get it - some could potentially see a tournament every year. Would go a very long way for them.
Someone needs to get Asia and Africa involved and us all throw down in a three-continent tournament that rotates among the continents. Africa N. America S. America Central America Caribbean Asia It would be a really high level tournament. Just a hair shy of the Euros.
Indeed. On this board, we obviously have a pro-US view. The Gold Cup will continue. And yes, its a huge deal for the other nations of the region. Its their World Cup (although when the World Cup is expanded, hopefully more of these nations get that opportunity. 2026 for sure as Mexico, Canada, and US are likely to get an automatic berth). Americans care about the Gold Cup. There's a vocal minority on this board who think its a waste of time. I don't buy any of their arguments. Any opportunity to play games that matter should be taken. Its OK if we send a "B" team to the Gold Cup if we have another event that summer. We've done that over and over again in our history. We just did it. In 2021 we sent the "A" team to the Nations League knockout stage, and the "B" team to the Gold Cup. Who's complaining about having MORE SOCCER? 2023: U20 World Cup, Gold Cup, Nations League 2024: Olympics, Copa America (presumably)
I really appreciate that perspective as it's always been something I wondered about. And your point about cricket declining in popularity is very interesting, I had no idea, I know it is booming as a spectator sport in India and I guess I'd just figured that translated in some way across the "cricket world". But let me ask the specific question as long as I've got you: Is the fact that a West Indian Soccer Team would be much stronger and in a 48 team format a near certainty for WC qualification and could compete much more meaningfully with the US and Mexico irrelevant to your consideration? Or do you just not believe that to be true? Would you have similar feelings about a West Indian Premier League for clubs that would supplant the top local leagues with the aim of raising the standard of club play?
This is why I find it astonishing that the mega powers haven't really gotten down to brass tacks and tried to create a competiting tournament that they control. Who even knows who all these corrupt little ---- bags are that run every tiny and every giant fifedom of FIFA power? Why shouldn't it be the most powerful Fed's that have actually made the sport what it is internationally? Sure, kind of d baggy to argue it that way, but really, should the people w/the clout be who it currently is? I would like to think we could get a more efficient less corrupt FIFA if we just deleted it, tore it down completely and rebuilt from scratch w/the biggest contributors hopefully designing something that made more sense than the ridiculous corrupt garbage we have now. It would still be corrupt but it would at least be borderline competent. What we have is just absurd and thats how you get back to back tournaments hosted by corrupt, vile, cretin states who paid out the biggest bribes rather than delivered the best proposals.
There was something so crazy about listening to his podcast, hearing his cough, and what not thursday night, going to work and finding out he was dead a few hours later. I still cannot believe it. Just horrific. Can't help but feel something as simple as the cup not going to a ---- bag gas station of a country would mean he'd still be alive. Then again, we can all pass at any moment, anywhere. A freaking snow mobile being towed nearly killed me in late 2009. A volley ball net holder thing nearly cracked my skull in PE in 1990 etc.
Yes, it's a dying game for Carbbeans even as it booms on the Indian subcontinent. When my grandfather was my age, Jamaica would shut down for test matches. Today, the new Caribbean Premier League has some support, people are aware of the West Indies team, but it just doesn't have the cultural gravitas. Caribbean kids gravitate more heavily toward football and track, and everything else is distantly behind. That's true in the diaspora too - British Caribbean kids may have given the game a look in recess or something early on but they all go for football or rugby now. American Caribbeans (like myself) barely know what cricket is and have almost universally never played. The former. If the conglomeration means I no longer get to support my nation, then I really don't care that it does a better job going head to head with Mexico on any given day. Also, with a 48 team format, WC qualification odds are pretty strong for Jamaica, so we're really not gaining a lot there. A combined West Indies team would inevitably lead to fewer CONCACAF qualification slots anyway, which further weakens the argument. It just doesn't make sense. No, because in that scenario I still get to support multiple Jamaican clubs most likely. From a representation perspective, a united league is a much more workable perspective. A league doesn't represent a people/nation quite the way a national side is meant to, so losing that national nexus really isn't the same, so long as your nation still has it's teams within said league that can fly the flag for you.
There's not much incentive for any of that because the mega powers already have a significant degree of control and benefit immensely from the way things currently are. All this would do is create a marginal shift from near total dominance of the game to complete dominance of the game. Also, given the number of UEFA + CONMEBOL officials who have been implicated in corruption scandals in the not so distant past, I'm really not sure we can say with confidence that giving them even more power would actually improve the status quo as it relates to corruption. I'd posit that you get the same corruption, just with smaller countries getting railroaded a bit more than they already do. The CFU, for example, doesn't have real clout. Their voting power allows them to avoid getting totally and irrevocably screwed on a regular basis by much larger, more powerful nations whose interests totally clash with those of the region, but when it comes to making real decisions re: who hosts a world cup, who gets broadcasting rights, etc? They can provide some votes here or there and maybe some political favors will be traded for it, but they're not driving the bus. The big profiteers whose opinions actually matter are in Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, the USA, etc. They're not in Grenada. Basically, all of these conversations effectively call for is taking a group of nations who really aren't in positions of power, and screwing them over a lot more, while taking dominant nations and giving them more clout than they already have. It's punching down, and it's neither moral nor in line with what the spirit of the game should be. Dunking on Saint Vincent and Grenada isn't going to fix your Russia and Qatar problem.
I wouldn't give the power to them, I'd give the power to the best and brightest who run the show, who make the CL a well oiled machine (except when it isn't lol), and manage to balance things like CL, Europa League, Conference League etc. I'm under no illusions that it will happen. Barriers to entry are simply too big at this point, much easier to rig a competition among owners of Big 5 league clubs rather than rebuild a new FIFA from scratch, but I 100% believe it's possible to do it, and do it better, and I believe that FIFA itself is just about the worst organization imaginable considering what could be present instead. We're just stuck w/this abject ---- show copy of the IOC in terms of corruption and vile self-dealing. And I think I made clear in my post that the vile cretins are everywhere, little fiefdoms and big alike. But I think we know the people in sports in various leagues that could build something better and cleaner, it's just not gonna happen unfortunately.
Infantino of course previously ran UEFA. But it's like as soon as he went to FIFA he became immediately assimilated in its corruption. The main problem at current is you have alot of national associations who have zero chance of ever playing in a World Cup and who aren't currently the ones contributing to FIFA revenues, expecting more and more a share of the pie. This is why Infantino went to the 48 team World Cup and this is why he was pushing for the every 2 year World Cup. And alot of these smaller federations are subject to a ton of corruption and the revenues they are getting are going to line the pockets of their executives (and not to actually grow the sport in those countries). And to say the bigger federations aren't also corrupt because many are. But when you actually have to run a team who has a legit shot of going to the World Cup, theres less that one can skim off the top. Now the flip side is while giving each country one vote doesn't really work, the prior system with the executive committee was making decisions on things like World Cup hosting didn't work either as we saw in the bidding for 2018 and 2022. It's just less people for them to bribe to lock down hosting rights. The World Cup two year plan every two years actually had the potential to start to push UEFA and CONMEBOL to want to break away from FIFA. Which is why Infantino. But I don't think its sustainable for one group of countries who are driving most of the revenues. The analogy to me here is the conference realignment that we've seen in college sports.
Part of FIFA's mission is to grow the game across the planet. You can't do that without spreading some of the money to some of the nations that don't necessarily generate most of it. That includes nations that may never play in a world cup. Are we suggesting this mission be abandoned? Because if we're going to insist that smaller associations pushing for funding is implicitly problematic, I don't really know how that mission gets served. You need capital for that. The corruption argument is slowly but surely turning into a catch-all to turn small nations into villains, and it's unfortunate. The truth is that we don't have convincing objective evidence that most of the capital being redirected by FIFA today will not actually benefit the game in those nations. It's an assumption based on an admittedly dark history with names like Webb and Warner engaging in prolific graft, but this does not necessarily reflect today's reality. I know for a fact that the game in certain Caribbean countries today benefits directly from the FIFA money in a way it wouldn't have in 2005, so I am hesitant to support this argument, especially without any empirical data to back it up. We don't need to simply assume that all money is in an officials pocket if the nation isn't the USA or France. Both the 48 team World Cup and the Biennial proposals had legitimate arguments behind them re: growing the game globally. Most of the planet would have benefitted from that proposal. That's pretty obvious. The truth is this: If you magically eliminated ALL graft and corruption tomorrow, and tried to propose expansion + biennial tournaments again, you would still have had near 100% support from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and most of North America outside of maybe Mexico and the USA. Support for those proposals is not simply a product of graft, there are actually legitimate reasons for it. The problem is that everything that does not explicitly benefit UEFA and CONMEBOL seems to receive automatic condemnation as blind corruption and nothing else. We don't seem to give as much consideration to other motives. And that is frustrating. So what's the ideal here? End one nation/one vote, and then what? We already have a comically large disparity in financial and geopolitical power between the great powers and the rest. Now, absent one nation/one vote, you remove one of the only existing checks against that. How does this play out? For the USA, probably ok. For the rest of us? Not so sure. I'm struggling to see how they don't get screwed. And once this is done, what are the rewards? You're not keeping the World Cup out of Russia or Qatar, etc. The Qataris, Emiratis, etc have wealth we, quite literally, cannot fully quantify, they'll buy what they need to buy (and they already own half of UEFAs premier capitals anyway). You don't get more money - smaller, less frequent tournaments (because, lets be honest, folks advocating for this hate WC expansion and will take us back to 24 teams probably if they have the power) don't yield more revenue. Less corruption? Not really, UEFA + CONMEBOL are the capitals of corruption. There are just fewer actors to partake in it (and theyll be more competent at it, I guess) It might get the USA a more privileged position in the global game. So I guess there's that upside, from an American perspective. Probably the same applies to any other insiders that survive the purge of the nations who were deemed unworthy of one vote.
I don't have a problem with the mission, but it's not what's occurring in practice. There's also only so much FIFA can on that front. The reasons that alot of these countries don't have vibrant soccer cultures and teams that can compete on the global stage has alot to do with economics, lack of population, and/or lack of interest in the sport. There is only so much that FIFA is capable of doing as an organization, even if they weren't super corrupt. The reason we don't have that data is because FIFA doesn't want that data. They could have much stricter financial controls that exist right now. If you watch the FIFA Netflix documentaries there are all sorts of good examples of this sort of corruption. Both of these proposals have the effect of significantly diluting the World Cup. The 48 team format is going to lead to alot more games that are simply not competitive. And have a World Cup every two years would pile on more games on players who already play far too many. I don't think that everything that does not suit UEFA and CONMEBOL is corruption, but FIFA is an incredibly corrupt organization, as a number of federations, and often acts with corruption as a motivating factor. And of course these two confederations interests matter. They are the primary drivers of soccer on the planet. Both in terms of players and revenue. A World Cup without the two of them would be nowhere near as lucrative. I don't know what the ideal governance system is. But does it really make sense for say France to have the same voting power as Barbados? One has one of the best leagues in the world, has won the World Cup multiple times, and has a much larger population. The other has no hope of every playing in a World Cup, even with a move to 48 teams. It doesn't make sense that they should both have the same say in the governance of FIFA. What sort of check is being provided by one nation/one vote? Well I don't think it's a good thing that Qatar and Russia were able to get the World Cup through bribery. And that's something we should try and make sure doesn't happen again. I agree with you that there's corruption in UEFA and CONMEBOL as well. We saw this in the bidding process for Qatar. I thought 32 was the perfect number for the World Cup and there isn't the sort of depth globally for a 48 team World Cup. There may be one day and I would have probably waited on expansion for consideration for some point in the future. I don't think anyone would have ever rolled it back to 24 though. Honestly I don't really think about this from the perspective of the United States. As we are still an emerging country in alot of ways when it comes to soccer. I wouldn't expect to have the same level of influence as UEFA or CONMEBOL quite yet. Like I said I don't know what the ideal governance solution is. But I don't think one vote/one country is super workable given the large disparities you have both in terms of size and in terms of soccer culture.
The single most crucial thing to dealing with those issues and spreading the game in those nations is capital investment. FIFA is literally the best positioned actor to deal with that issue. That's what World Cup Expansion/Biennial tournaments were primarily intended to do. We would have that data if it existed. FIFA is not able to hide its skeletons that completely - the very existence of those documentaries is proof positive of that. That data isnt there because the money that is being spread to smaller federations by FIFA is doing more good than people really are comfortable admitting. Part of that is a very understandable animosity and distrust toward FIFA and an unwillingness to be seen giving it any credit, of any kind, regardless of it being due. The other part of that is people simply not caring about new (desperately needed) synthetic pitches coming up in places like Jamaica and Guyana. You may believe that to be the case (I disagree), but that's not my point. My point is that, even in a world with zero corruption and absolutely no graft or misdeeds whatsoever, if you are almost any country outside of UEFA or CONMEBOL (and even within UEFA there are probably a half dozen supporters), you have almost every incentive to support both expansion and a biennial tournament. It is constantly implied that these proposals are made and supported strictly to support corruption and buy some third world football officials new Toyota Land Cruiser Prados. This is not the case. You may disagree with them, and that's fine, but what needs to be acknowledged is that in doing so you have a legitimate conflict of interest with the majority of the planet. That is to say, this is not them disagreeing just because they're greedy and corrupt, but rather they legitimately have objectives that clash with yours, graft or no graft. We need to start acknowledging that, rather than doing what we do now and simply assuming, because FIFA proposed it and it largely benefits Africa/Asia/etc, that its purely graft and nothing else. Those are fine points, and I'm not disputing them. I'm disputing the tendency to treat everything that doesn't explicitly benefit those confederations as rampant corruption with no legitimate benefit or reasoning. That's a problem. Nobody suggested kicking these continents out of the World Cup, and nobody implied they were not the primary economic drivers of the game. Indeed, none of the proposals made that have generated so much controversy (the expansion to 48 and the biennial tournament) do anything to eliminate the privileged position these countries have in the game. It's their table, always will be - all the rest of the world did was ask for a few more seats at the end. It does not, and they do not. France has dramatically more say in shaping the vision and direction of football. France has legitimate, enduring influence on the FIFA Council, in addition to its single vote. Barbados and its fellow minnows do not. France has economic and geopolitical means to shape the direction of the game in concert with a handful of other great powers. Barbados and its fellow minnows do not. We see this regularly in the way the club game is structured, where players flow, and where the actual money is. Your mistake is looking at the single vote each nation has in the FIFA Congress and believing that this is an accurate and somewhat complete representation of each nation's power to shape the game. It isnt. Quite the contrary, one nation/one vote is a recognition of the disparate power nations like France (and Germany, and England, and, to a lesser extent, even the USA) have, and always will have. If you want an example of this, you can take a glance at the biennial world cup proposal. That proposal had the support of nearly every nation on the planet outside of UEFA and CONMEBOL (and even then, a handful within UEFA too). Out of 210 members, there were at most 50 in serious, hardcore opposition to the idea. The opposition was vastly outnumbered - had it actually come down to "one nation, one vote", it would not have been a very close fight, and we'd all be contemplating World Cup 2028 right now. Guess who won? The opposition. Why? Their power is not fully reflected by the single vote you see them use in the FIFA Congress. The power you're not seeing is the power that allowed them to take on the world and win with relative ease. Barbados does not have that kind of power. 150 nations, most much greater in economic/geopolitical power and football success than Barbados, do not have that power, even together. One country/One vote is what gets nations like Barbados funding for technical support and youth development, access to some regional tournaments (like the Gold Cup), and access to regular games via the Nation's League. If we did not have one country/one vote, and we instead only gave votes to "worthy" countries, nations like Barbados would simply be erased. They'd almost never get to play, and they'd receive zero financial support to grow and develop their game even to the limited extent they've been able to so far. Football would die there. The fate of moderately greater but still minor nations like Jamaica or Panama would be scarcely better. Which to some isn't exactly a great loss. Understandable - but it matters to others. 24 is probably what we have without one nation/one vote. We'd have never gotten to 32. The USA is the world's superpower and a regular participant at the World Cup level. They would never lose their seat at the table were the proposals made by the anti "one nation/one vote" crowd taken to their logical conclusion. They are too big and too influential. Consciously or subconsciously, that's a factor in how these arguments are made. It's easier to dismiss one nation/one vote when its erasure wouldn't really impact your country. "It's the worst option, except for all of the alternatives."
I just don't really think one country / one vote is some disaster, or even a negative. On the corruption angle, it seems to me the only argument here is that it is easier to buy off smaller countries' votes than bigger countries? I mean, France required the sale of PSG and fighter jets; surely Barbados didn't require that. But with more votes, you need to buy more votes... Honestly, while there's definite chances for abuse -- within FIFA, within CCAF, we haven't seen it. We haven't seen CONCACAF smaller nations take all the money from USSF, for example. And when that happens, that's when you take your ball and go home. I don't think World Cup expansion is terrible. I've heard this with every playoff structure ever, and it's never actually been the apocalypse everyone claims. It's usually an improvement and a lot of fun. Yes, there's less competitive games. Who gives a shit? You still have the knockouts. No one is forcing you to watch USA-Thailand. More importantly, International soccer isn't supposed to be the very best soccer anyway; much like college sports the point isn't watching the very best, it's the emotional connection to your team. Could Argentina beat PSG? Almost certainly not, but I'd rather watch Messi with Argentina. The only thing I think would be terrible would be a World Cup every two years. It's just too much. It's too much for the players, too much for the fans, too much for the infrastructure, etc. We already should have 3 of the 4 years be exciting: Continental Championship, Qualification, World Cup. All we need to do in CONCACAF is to spruce up that Continental Championship, either by bringing in Copa America or by .... getting some other CCAF nations to improve.
I don't care about the expansion angle beyond formatting. I would love to see teams that are on the cusp generationally get a chance cycle to cycle. My fondness for 2nd tier teams that never made it across the line in CAF in particular would be quite fulfilled to see teams like Zambia (greatest generation killed in plane crash), or Burkina Faso, knocked out repeatedly despite getting really close, DR Congo, strong teams like Egypt and Ivory Coast that have had a hard time breaching the last wall. I'd just love to see it opened up to a few more teams so they can be a part of the party, but the formatting is a real issue.
There’s alot of African teams that I do think will show well at the World Cup once it expands. Their qualifying format means a lot of good teams often don’t make it to the World Cup either. The federations where I think the lack of depth will most show is Asia and CONCACAF. I don’t think Panama, El Salvador, and Jamaica would have shown particularly well if they had been in the World Cup for instance. Similarly I think the extra teams from Asia would have been UAE, Iraq, Syria, and Oman.
Don't know if it deserves its own thread, but some scheduling news out of the FIFA council meeting: "The windows for the international match calendar as of 2025 would include one extended window with four matches in late September and early October to replace the current two separate windows in September and October, with the other windows (November, March and June) unchanged. In order to increase the possibilities for teams from different confederations to play each other, FIFA would launch friendly tournaments – “FIFA World Series” – which would take place in the March window in even years." https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/org...2022-tm-praised-for-its-unique-cohesive-power
Good thing Copa America 2024 will likely be held in the US and not South America, no one wants to see Sergino Dest driven mad by delusions of conquering all of the Americas and founding an incestuous dynasty to rule over it...
Half measures and vaguely promising concepts are how we got into this mess in the first place, I'm sorry. No one has the authority to say "here is how the international calendar works and interacts with the club game, it goes exactly this far and no further" in a way the relevant parties are going to accept.
Other things to come out of the council Infantino backing away from plan for 16 groups of 3 at the 2026 World Cup. Wants to "revisit" decision, reconsider 12 groups of 4 teams instead. (This will involve some third-place teams going through.)— Andrew Das (@AndrewDasNYT) December 16, 2022 Also for the summer of 2025 FIFA announce a new expanded 32 team Club World Cup will start in 2025. No location yet. An expanded 24 team tournament had been planned for China in 2021 but scrapped because of Covid.— tariq panja (@tariqpanja) December 16, 2022 A terrible idea I think with players already playing so many games, but I also won’t be surprised if this isn’t in the US as the “prep” tournament. Gianni Infantino confirming he can be FIFA president until 2031, saying this counts as the first term and he can serve three terms.Not counting his partial 3-year term 2016-2019 after completing the banned Sepp Blatter's term— Rob Harris (@RobHarris) December 16, 2022 And surprise surprise, Infantino is already saying he’s planning to exceed the term limits he put into place when taking over.