64-Team World Cup Tournament is a Good Idea

I think a 64 tournament is inevitable.

CONMEBOL and CONCACAF will never combine qualifiers though.
That is a pipe dream.

 

Yeah as long as UEFA gets a large chunk of that expansion, it wouldn't dilute the quality at all from what it already is.

 

I am not a huge advocate for a 64 team tournament but see some of the positive arguments and am not especially opposed. Like others here, I do think the expansion is probably inevitable. The money is obviously a huge factor, and some of the mechanical/logistical issues (ex: better group play) are probably going to push it over the edge eventually.

That said, I take issue with the below:

I do not understand why so many fans make this assumption. Nobody is asking for Europeans, Africans and Asians to just give up their own qualifiers, and the logistics of doing so make no more sense for North or South Americans than they do Africans or Europeans, but for some reason these same folks fully expect two entire continents in the Americas to do so. It is absolutely baffling to me.

Beyond just the basic fact that no Confederation wants to surrender its qualifiers like this and no Confederation ever will, there are several very clear reasons why this will not happen.

1. CONMEBOL does not want to allow a bunch of small Caribbean and Central American teams to dilute their qualifiers. Nations like Curacao and Jamaica bring them no real value competitively or financially.

2. CONMEBOL does not want to allow a bunch of small Caribbean/Central American teams to reduce the political power of their own nations and start pushing them around. Combined qualifiers will necessitate combined political decisions among both confederations - CONCACAF would have far more voting power than CONMEBOL in the combined bloc. Brazil and Argentina are not about to start asking Suriname and Belize for permission to shape their world cup qualifying path.

3. Outside of maybe Mexico and the USA (even these two are debatable), most of CONCACAF does not benefit from a combination. Nations like Haiti and Curacao, who you have eliminated here, arent going to vote to block themselves from the tournament (and any combination would require a majority vote from CONCACAF).

4. The logistics (travel distances) do not really work. Smaller CONCACAF nations already struggle to manage flights to Canada and the USA and even within the Caribbean itself. They are not going to handle flights to Buenos Aires or Lima very well.

5. In a 64 team expansion, the combination isnt needed for quality purposes. CONCACAF would receive at most 2, probably just 1 spot in this expansion. Throw 8 at Europe, 2 at CONMEBOL, and split the remaining 5 between Asia and Africa and youre all set (maybe throw some playoff spots in there to make it interesting).

 

If anything, Asia and Oceania should combine or reshuffle things. Oceania does not deserve any guaranteed spots let alone 1.5 Spots. Even in a 64 team tournament.

But I am not calling for that. I am just saying to me that would be more logical that CONCACAF and CONMEBOL combining.

 

Welcome to FIFA and CONEMBOL. It does not have to make sense or be serious. It can be as ridiculous as they want it to be.

 

Lol. Come on now.

 

Tell me which of the 6 WC qualified teams do not deserve to be there and which CONCACAF teams would you replaced them with.

 

He's not saying they dont deserve to be there. He's saying its ridiculous to play an 18 game marathon qualifying tournament to qualify anywhere from 6-8 out of 10 teams, and it is.

That's why he suggested Concacaf and Conmebol should combine, its a very good argument, and it could potentially benefit Conmebol by qualifying all 10 of their teams for future world cups.

 

Who knows? They may just do what they do in American College athletics.
Infantino will get a dozen or more experts together. Sit them down in a room as a committee. Pick the best 64 teams based on strength of schedule and rankings and other criteria.

mix them up in regional brackets and reward high seeds with matches closer to home.

Let the games begin. Who needs Qualifying in a tournament this big?

 

To keep with the American sports analogy Confederation Cups will be treated like Conference Championships for automatic bids into the tournament.

 

Yay for 64 on the argument of match day 3 group stage excitement

 

That just isnt enough given the downsides noted earlier. The price being paid by both sides here (reduced independence, lower WC access for CONCACAF, higher exposure to political dominance of minnows for CONMEBOL, logistical hurdles, etc) is too large for a reward as limited as "qualifiers will be a little more interesting".

Not directly. But when you suggest 10 qualifying CONMEBOL teams as a positive of the suggestion for combination, and we understand that a combined confederation may only receive 15 berths and CONCACAF qualifies 6 teams today, you can see where the question comes from. For all of this to work they way many want with all 10 CONMEBOL teams qualifying, CONCACAF must effectively give up berths.

I have explained why this argument is far from "very good" already but aside from that a question: why would CONCACAF support this? Is it in the CONCACAF's interests to see all 10 CONMEBOL teams qualify? If not, why would they pay to facilitate that outcome?

 

I agree with everything the author said, from the start when we knew we would get a 48-nations World Cup, I was already convinced that the expansion to 64 was the logical thing to do in order to make group stage interesting again.

As for the extra spots, I know it cannot work like this unfortunately, but I would not have UEFA or CONMEBOL have any more places, as they both have too many already, one because it always had the most by far, the other because half of the countries already qualify or so.

I would also like Asia + Oceania to be reworked, but I would still like 2 different confederations: Middle and Central east together, and then east Asia and Oceania together.

I think there are too many nations in asia that are so different from each other given the distances, and that we could benefit from splitting that continent footballing-wise.

So that would be something along the lines of:

- UEFA: 16 spots
- CONMEBOL: 7 spots
- CAF: 15 spots
- CONCACAF: 7 spots
- AFC (East): 12 spots
- AFC (West & Central): 7 spots

No intercontinental playoffs so all confederations would always have the same amount of represented nations.

Of course given the influential power of UEFA and CONMEBOL this won’t happen though.

 

Guess who does not find the 18 game marathon ridiculous: South Americans.
Combining with CONCACAF will be good for CONCACAF. Conmebol will only get more money(maybe for a while, because nobody would watch this crap) from tv to feed the Conmebol mafia, nothing will get to the clubs as usual. We will be playing against lower opposition in groups of 4 or 5. Yes, we’ll qualify to the WC easily but will never get to play each other. That’s our strength, that’s how we got good, playing against the best, in every kind of environment, in any kind of climate.
So no, I don’t think it’s a good argument, and to our CONCACAF friends I say “Earn it, baby, earn it like we did, nobody will hand it to you”.

.

 

I am amazed how many people think doubling the size of the WC in a short span of time won't lower the overall quality of the teams.

There's an obvious loss of basic logic in that thinking. Just look at the 2022 WC we had - how many mediocre teams were there other than Qatar who didn't qualify?

Now I'm seeing people getting excited with the idea of up to 19 AFC teams in a WC. That means (at least) 11 teams worse than Qatar - just from AFC alone.

No, France v Viet Nam in the group stage of a 64-team WC isn't more interesting than France v Norway in a 48-team WC.

 

France vs Vietnam would be cool due to the cultural and historical aspects though.

 

I believe I’m part of a minuscule minority myself anyway, who don’t mind adding more nations to the WC. Give me a 128 nations World Cup and I’m all in I’d still watch as many matches as I can, to be blunt when I want to see the best possible football I watch UEFA Champion’s League.

International football, especially the World Cup itself is for me about coming all together for a giant party and see who wins, more than a tournament that should remain selective and “high quality” from end to end.

The high quality will happen no matter what, at worst in the latter stages, but seeing more countries represented, with more people happy to see their teams attend the party is enough for me to enjoy that competition

I know that this opinion is heresy for many, but be it hahahaha, bring it on Guam vs San Marino I’d watch you guys with great pleasure, no matter the quality of the match!

 

Yup. The more International futbol the better. The cultures, the pageantry, pomp and circumstances the global celebrations.

That is why I did not mind the World Cup every two years idea by Infantino. Also do not mind a Global Nations League idea.

Instead we got more Club futbol with the expanded Club World Cup. Not as fun.

 

I like the 4 years hiatus to bring in the rare and special factor but as for the rest I’m down

 

The format is better with 64 teams than 48, that's for sure. But one caveat to that is 64 is more difficult to host. Its 24 more matches in the same amount of time, meaning 3-4 more stadiums needed, meaning probably 1-2 more co-host countries needed.

I thought about this in the discussion in the other thread related to the idea of Italy hosting the 2038 WC. It quickly became obvious that a bunch of other countries like Greece, Switzerland, and/or ex-Yugoslav nations would have to cohost to be feasible. Its not fans of 48 nations all together for a giant party; it likely becomes more fragmented. Resembling Euro2020 where entire groups are hosted by different countries. You probably won't get more than 48 countries coming together in a single country like we'll see in 2026 even if the WC were to expand to 64 (or 128).

 

The distance from Guadalajara to Vancouver is more than almost anything you can think for in continental Europe though.
So who cares about the fragmentation. The positives are cities with rich , cultural and international historic backgrounds can once again host matches like the ones in Italy, Sweden, Switzerland. Then you can have Nations that have great World Cup history host that have never hosted before like Netherlands, Hungary, Croatia, etc.

 

Well, its the context of the post I was addressing.

I believe that 46 of the 48 nations in this year's tournament all play in the US even if they exit after the group stage. So, its pretty much the case that all nations are converging in one country. I think it will feel less fragmented than Euro 2020 even if a couple of other countries are hosting a few games each.

 

True, but the feeling of fragmentation is negligible when you can take quick train rides to wonderful cities with National Team histories and vibes. Some would say it will be more fun.