Interesting, even though it does not have much connection to the subject of this thread. I would love it but know many people would not.
CONMEBOL would obviously have to break WCQs into 2 groups because they couldn't have 18 WCQs every 2 years. I don't see how a World Cup every 2 years would be possible unless you did at least one of these: 1. Increase how many FIFA matchdays there are per year. Clubs would stop that. 2. Have different leagues within each confederation so the bottom teams can't try to qualify. UEFA used to do that for Women's World Cup Qualifying but now lets every team enter. 3. Do rounds at neutral sites rather than Group Stages that take months or years. For example, rather than a group of 4 needing three pairs of matchdays, there could be two Semifinals and one Final at a neutral site in one pair of matchdays. If 2 out of 4 teams advance, the teams could play each once to make each team play 3 games, but the problem is that it would require clubs to take two weeks off instead of one or to make players play 5 games in 14 or 15 days (2 club games with 3 national team games in between) with the possibility of two long flights depending on how far it is from a player's club to his national team. Qualifying for the FIBA (basketball) World Cup changed from neutral site tournaments to group stages over a longer period so fans could see their national teams play in person. Changing WCQs to neutral site tournaments would be the opposite. As a separate issue, it will be easier to break the record for career World Cup goals if the World Cup happened twice as often. If the NFL kept playing 16 games per year but made each season be 32 games over the course of two years, it would be easy to break season records. I would be more apt to want a World Cup every two years if there weren't confederational tournaments, but there are.
I think it is obvious CONMEBOL would not do the everyone vs. everyone Marathon qualifying anymore and just go back to Groups like prior to France '98.
Here's more info: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/24/sports/soccer/fifa-world-cup-conmebol.html Maybe we should continue this in the Nations League thread?
A biennial World Cup is such a non-starter there is no point in even commencing a debate. Further evidence that CONMEBOL have lost their marbles.
If I would have told you that a 48 team World Cup would happen and voted on almost unanimously you would have said something similar just a few years back. I agree that it is pretty far fetched. But a discussion can be had. As Dominguez said, why have a World Nations League when you can just have two World Cups?
That's a good point. It wouldn't make sense for the Olympics to be U-23 with 3 overage players if the overage players were wanted in the World Cup a few weeks apart. Even if the Olympics dropped the overage players, if the World Cup is played earlier in the summer like usual, fans will have seen the best players before the Olympics.
Well , then they could do something crazier and alternate Summer World Cups with Winter World Cups. Although Clubs would hate that they at least have a blue print of what it could look like with Qatar.
Then aren't you talking about half the gaps being 1.5 years and half being 2.5 years? The top leagues play two seasons in between summer tournaments like World Cup 2018 and Euro 2020. How do you expect them to play two seasons in between tournaments 1.5 years apart? Do you want a World Cup break during the season? To make an analogy, the MLB regular season is April through September. Even if you could magically make the weather adequate every day of the year, I don't think teams would want odd-numbered seasons to be April through September and even-numbered seasons to be a month earlier March through August. I generally support what national teams want over want clubs want, but if clubs spoke against a World Cup every 2 years I would side with clubs. If clubs wanted less frequent World Cups or fewer qualifiers per World Cup, I would side with FIFA and national teams.
As I said it is far-fetched but a discussion could take place. It would take a major schedule change, tournaments may have to correlate and re-align in the same year, the Gold Cup and African Cup would have to just be played once per 4 year cycle (Everyone around here would love that.) FIFA match days would have to be flipped around or eliminated in certain years, Winter breaks would have to be longer. It is a logistical nightmare. But it can happen. If we can put a man on the moon we can play two World Cups in a 4 year span.
Now that's timing by the Conmebol president. Nothing like talking about something else to cover up the Libertadores chaos.
You’re intentionally avoiding the elephant in the room. Gold cups every 4 years? Lol. Nope that’s not it. An extra FIFA international break in February? Guess again. How about, the Euros would not be able to co-exist with a biennial WC? Yeah, I’d say that’s a bit of a problem.
They could exist. They would have to change to odd years or something but they could exist with proper schedule shuffling The Euro Qualifiers could even double as the World Cup Qualifiers like Africa did a few cycles. Whatever the case may be it can happen.
Making qualifiers be for the World Cup and Euro would be confusing. Because of how many teams qualify for each tournament, UEFA might not want the same amount of groups in both. Euro Qualifying uses head-to-head as the first tiebreaker, while World Cup Qualifying uses goal differential. You could have a situation where with one game left, a team mistakenly thinks have qualified for the World Cup because they lead by 3 points and have the head-to-head tiebreaker than Euro Qualifying uses. The team could go down 3-0 and play defensively to avoid getting embarrassed knowing that they won't come back to draw or win, when in reality if they attacked and lost 3-1 they could have qualified for the World Cup while being eliminated with a 3-0 loss. I'm not saying that's likely, but coaches and players not knowing tiebreakers has happened, and that's without a game being part of two competitions. Portland's coach and some of their players mistakenly thought the MLS Playoffs used away goals in extra time, Africa had at least one example (I think South Africa didn't know a tiebreaker), and Manchester City didn't try their best to get first in a Champions League group because before their last game they were wrong about tiebreakers. Beyond the tiebreakers issue, I don't want a World Cup every four years. The World Cups in Men's Soccer, Women's Soccer, Men's Basketball, and possibly other sports are all every four years (I don't follow Cricket, Rugby, or Handball). Each Olympic sport is in an Olympics every four years.
I think you meant to write "I don't want a WC every two years". But yeah, qualifying in UEFA would get confusing to say the least. Aside from the tiebreakers, WC qualifying would start before the Euro tournament, and then resume after the Euro tournament (since of course you would have a Euros the year before a WC). Seems like a big mess just to have a WC every two years (with each WC then worth half as much compared to now). Yes, we flew people to the moon. But that's because it didn't seem like a stupid idea. The impossible sometimes becomes possible, but only when it isn't also stupid.
A 48 team World cup seemed like a stupid idea and we all saw how that turned out. A World Cup every two years can be implemented too.
48-team WC might be stupid, but a stupid idea never stopped FIFA before. One major difference though is that a 48-team WC is not logistically difficult, whereas a WC every 2 years is. Just like expanding the CL to 48 teams would be super easy. I don't think it would make it better, but its simple to implement. Two CLs per calendar year is another matter...
True. No one ever said it would be easy to implement. Just that it is possible and will be discussed.
LOL. As a handball lover, I am annoyed they (IHF, International Handball Federation) schedule Handball World Championship every two years (with continental championships in between). It is something like Gold Cup, confederation has to find money and only way to get it is to organize national team competitions even though it depreciates worth of the title. I hope those money-mad lunatics that lead the sport won't do this.
Smoke is swirling again. (And where there is smoke there is usually fire.) This time Saudi Arabia is clamoring for it: https://www.usatoday.com/story/spor...every-2-years-back-on-fifas-agenda/116333926/