FIFA International Match Calendar: Proposed Changes & General Discussion

Brazil will have changed in the 50-70 years between now and the next time they host a World Cup. An Argentina/Uruguay WC should be much easier to navigate.


1978 host cities.

 

True. The buses are great in both countries (even though they disapprove of you doing a #2 in the toilet despite some trips being 12+ hours long ).

 

Argentina will have high speed rail from Cordoba to Mar del Plata and it's a 2-3 hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires to Montevideo in Uruguay.

 

True!

But of course, the fewer other countries you have to share with, the bigger your piece of the pie is....

Argentina (for example) would be much better off financially as a member of a smaller break-away group than sharing with the 210 other member nations of FIFA.

 

Yeah, those thrilling encounters in where an ANVISA member steps in the pitch 5 minutes in and tries to jail the non brazilian players. A classic!

 

But we love CONMEBOL

 

CAF: yo Conmebol, tell AFC how you plan to prepare for biennial WCs.

Conmebol: check it out fellas, I play less qualifiers before each WC... BUT, that means that I play enough prep games for every other WC.

AFC: so... your plan is to win every other WC?

Conmebol:

 

It would be more like:

CAF- Yo COMEBOL, Tell me how your Confederation is going to get better in the future?

CONMEBOL- Well CAF, with 6 automatic team slots playing in a World Cup every two years against good teams from around the world they should get better at a faster pace than only having 4 or 5 play multiple games outside their CONFEDERATION every four year cycle. (Basically a rotation of two and a half teams every four years currently since Argentina and Brazil seem to always qualify.)

 

https://theathletic.com/2884596/2021/10/14/an-alternative-plan-to-a-world-cup-every-two-years/

I thought this was an interesting proposal from the Athletic. Basically if South America and Europe don't want to participate they don't have to and you can just run a tournament without them to run concurrently with the Copa America and Euro Cup.

 

You could organize a World Cup that excludes CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, AFC, CAF and OFC and call it "the Euros".

 

A tournament with CAF, AFC, concacaf, Oceania.

I think that would be great. Then scrap the biennial afcon and gold cup.

Plus you could add any teams from uefa who didn't qualify for Euro who WANT TO JOIN.

I am sure some of those teams would love to play in a tournament like this.

You'd have

Mexico, USA, Canada, Panama, Jamaica

Nigeria, Algeria, Senegal, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Egypt, Tunisia

Iran, S. Korea, Australia, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand

Then maybe 4 invites who didn't qualify for Euro

Ireland, Serbia, Bosnia, Norway

24 teams

Have it hosted in either the US, Qatar, Japan,

This is actually a great idea. I'd love it.

 

Yup I think it'd be super fun and interesting and I'd love the chance to see the US play some different teams as opposed to play the same teams every two years in the Gold Cup.

 

I think everybody is yearning for more cross confederational football.

Once every 4 years doesn't cut it.

Looks like this may be a snowball going down the hill that cannot be stopped. We can only hope.

Concacaf, CAF, and AFC all stand to gain tremendously from this. It will improve the quality of their teams and I'm sure they could rack in the revenues from this.

Honestly I think eventually Conembol would not be able to resist joining. A 10 team tournament is whack, this would be much better if they joined in.

Uefa could resist all they want, once Conembol joins, That tournament will be way better than the Euros.

Slowly you could force another world cup. And even if you didn't I'd be happy with that new tournament, whatever you'd want to call it.

 

I’m not really in favor of another World Cup but I do think different international tournaments would be interesting. Maybe I’m the only one but I really enjoyed the Confederations Cup before they got rid of it. Mostly I’d like to keep the World Cup how it is but try other things in between. The Gold Cup is not a great tournament and yet it’s the only other one the US has a chance to play in (other than the occasional Copa America).

 

I liked the Confederations cup too and thought they should have expanded it, rather than drop it.

I definitely think that the biennial afcon and gold cup could be scrapped for a tournament like this. CAF, AFC, and concacaf all stand to gain a lot from this.

They should all harmonize their schedules to have their confed tournaments in the same year, so this would be possible, and also of possible schedule the tournament in a year where there is no copa or euro so they could also get guests from other confeds.

 

I doubt it. "Better" doesn't just boil down to the number of quality teams involved. Why? Well, for the same reason even a Global Nations League probably wouldn't be "better" than the Euros, or equal to the World Cup. And this idea sounds kind of Nations League-ish. ("The winner is the champion of.... nothing")

In 25 years, maybe / who knows? But no guarantee it would be better than the Euros and certainly not from the very start.

 

Better in terms of entertainment value

100%

Yeah you'd be champion of "nothing"

But what is the europa league winner the champion of ? Doesn't take away from the importance of the competition to the teams involved.

 

I like the general concept, although I would prefer a 32-team tournament instead -- and I wouldn't mind it all capped up with the winner playing a playoffs against the Copa America champions and the winner of that match, playing against the Euro champions.

 

I don't know about the politics in CONEMBOL but what I am suggesting is akin to CONMEBOL champions participating in the recently scrapped Confederations Cup but getting a 'bye' to the semis, while EURO champions get a bye to the final. In the process you get what the AFC, CAF, Concacaf, and OFC could take from a biannual World Cup without UEFA and CONMEBOL having to do much. The winner of it all could be given a big prize and title too.

 

I'm just amazed that the FIFA puppet football genius Wenger hasn't come up with any suggestions like these.

 

I think that depends on whether CONMEBOL teams join or not. Based on some of the comments above, I think some people may be overestimating the willingness that CONMEBOL would have in scrapping Copa America. They have their own prestigious tournament on their soil which all ten teams partake in. This other idea would have none of that. The Copa is one of the few chances that South Americans can see their stars without leaving the continent. Hosting WCs is every 40 years or so.

From CONMEBOL’s perspective, reforming the Copa to, say, a 16-team tournament (6 guests from these other four confederations) that they would still host seems way more attractive IMO. Assuming they wanted to touch Copa America at all, that is.