So I see it has changed again. I think this is even worse than the systems used during the past 2 qualification cycles. The FIFA website says the 10 group winners will play in five 2 leg playoffs and the five winners will go to the World Cup. So the top African teams only have to play 8 games to get in? They must have time for a few more games. I don't know how they could organize the early rounds, but at some point I would like to see Africa get down to 4 groups in the final stage where the group winners go to the World Cup and all of the second place finishers get put in a 4 team playoff. The winner of the playoff would get the 5th spot. Thoughts?
WCQ qualifying should take up as many international dates as possible. It should always resemble a league
I forgot to add that what I don't like about Africa is that the second place team in the group is eliminated. All other regions of the world give some of their 2nd place or lower teams a spot in the World Cup, or a playoff for a chance to go to the World Cup. Back in 2006 Ivory Coast eliminated Cameroon by finishing first in the group. I think it was a missed PK on the last day that cost Cameroon a spot in the World Cup. They were a pretty good second place team too. Just look at Europe, Spain and France are in the same group. With their system there is a chance the second place team in that group could still get to the World Cup.
^So you wouldn't let Africa compete in the World Cup anymore? I'm guessing that is what the red X means. Everything I have come up with that would allow number 2 in a group to advance is a possible 22+ game schedule. I think most confederations want to keep it to 18, or less games for their teams to ge to the World Cup. Plus I don't think some of the African nations have the money to play 22+ games.
I just figured out an ok set up, if they change it again. Round 1: Lowest ranked 32 play a 2 leg playoff. Round 2: Round 1 winners play 16 next highest ranked teams in CAF in a 2 leg playoff. Round 3: Four groups of 6. The top 4 CAF teams in the FIFA rankings join in this round. Group winners advance to the World Cup. Round 4: Playoff semi-finals between the 4 group runners up. Round 5: Playoff finals for the 5th CAF spot in the World Cup. This would be no worse than the current system of all 5 spots coming down to a two leg playoff and at least you wouldn't totally be out when finishing second in your round 3 group. It would also require playing 18 or less games to get to the World Cup. The top teams in CONCACAF had to play 18 games to get there before they changed the qualifying format and started giving them a bye to the semi-finals.
How many countries did you assume would attempt to qualify with this format? Based on my understanding of what you typed, Round 3 would have 16 teams that advanced from Round 2 and 4 teams starting there, which is a total of 20, but you said "four groups of 6."
I think I did type that up a little wrong. Anyway, the whole idea is to have playoffs to knock everyone out until you get to four groups of 6 like they have in Europe and the final region of CONCACAF. Then have the second place finishers play in a 4 team playoff for a final spot. CONCACAF used to do this. Everyone that was really good always made it to the semi-final group phase. The same thing would probably happen in Africa. The better teams like Egypt would win vs the African nations that no one has ever heard of and get to the group phase.
Well 54 members right, I agree that 2nd places should qualify or have a chance to qualify. a 4 team playoff like you propose would be interesting. Now the timing may be an issue, would this be a home-away for each elimination round. This means the October and November FIFA dates right So I guess the question would be to get to 4 groups of 6 for the final round. So the preliminary round has to get Africa from 54 countries down to 24, giving low members as many games as possible but also not too many games to overwhelm the top teams. Well if FIFA loses power, maybe the qualifiers would go away and be replaced by just the top teams in the regional tournaments.
Now an Idea that I would like to see in Concacaf but could perhaps work in Africa. The first round have 12 groups with the top 2 teams making it to the second group round. 9 groups would have 4 teams and play each other home-away for a total of 6 games. The other 3 groups would have 6 teams each and they would be the weakest 18 CAF nations based on FIFA ranking.
They could make this work. Last cycle the USA, Mexico, and Honduras had to play in a two leg playoff before advancing to a 6 game group phase, followed by another 10 game group phase. That meant they had to play 18 games to ge to the World Cup. Then there was Costa Rica who played 20 WCQ matches, but fell short of making the World Cup. If CAF would set it up like I did then the lowest ranked teams would have to play 4 playoff games to get to the group phase of 10 games and then win two more playoff series to get to the World Cup, if they finished second in their group. 4+ 10 + 4 = 18. If they played on the same days as CONCACAF then the 6 teams in each of the 4 African groups would be down to playing 4 games each when CONCACAF was just getting ready to start their final group phase. They could then have the playoffs and get done about the same time CONCACAF and some of the other regions are finishing up. CONMEBOL teams also play 18 WCQ when all 10 teams have to qualify.
They could split the AFC and CAF in 3 new confeds of 30-38 nations. UNAF+WAFF+CECAFA(30), WAFU+UNIFFAC+COSAFA(38), AFF+EAFF+SAFF/CAFF(34).
http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/tou...44/46/05/2014fwc_drawprocedures_africa_en.pdf says CAF has 53 countries and 52 of them attempted to qualify for the World Cup. I don't think any confederation would use your idea where a round with the final 24 teams couldn't have the best 24 teams even if all the groups in the previous round finished in the same order as the FIFA Ranking used to make the groups.
Honestly, for everything CONCACAF gets wrong, their qualifying format is one of the best. It gets rid of no-hopers relatively quickly, so they don't distort later-round results, and uses group results rather than one-offs for the final round, to eliminate upsets when they're most likely to happen. A CONCACAF-style system for Africa might look something like this: PRELIMINARY ROUND (2 game dates) If there are more than 48 teams qualifying, have enough teams play two-legged elimination games to end up with 48 total. Everyone else gets a bye. FIRST ROUND (2 game dates) Seeded home-and-away elimination series, so Ivory Coast would play the Seychelles, Ghana would play the Comoros, and so on. NEXT ROUND (6 game dates) 24 teams. 6 seeded groups of 4. Top two in each group go through. LAST ROUND (10 game dates) 12 teams. 2 seeded groups of 6. Top two in each group go through. PLAYOFF (2 game dates) Third-place teams play off home and away for the fifth spot. That's 22 game days total, the same number as Asia uses for its qualifying. This assumes the African minnows would be okay with a system like this. The Caribbean minnows usually are, because they can't afford a long qualifying campaign; the European minnows insist on staying in for the duration, because they like having England and Spain and Germany come to town for the revenue boost.
I assume they only changed the 2014 qualifying format because there is an African cup of nations in 2012 and another one in 2013. I doubt they will keep this format permanently. I agree though that the final round should be structured so that 2nd-place teams still have a chance. I don't like the format presented by chapka above though. Too similar to AFC's which wouldn't work as well in CAF because there are fewer minnows. The last thing you want to do is eliminate big teams early on in qualifying.
Here are my two cents: Africa had 53 teams in WC2010 qualifying and culled it down to 48 teams, a first round which would continue, but with 54 teams culled down to 48 teams (the 12 lowest ranked teams would play home-and-away). The 48 teams could again be grouped into a second round of 12 groups of four teams, but this time, the top two teams from each group would advance to a third round of 4 groups of six teams (instead of 5 groups of four teams). The winners of the 4 third-round groups would qualify directly for the World Cup, while the 4 second-place teams would compete for the remaining spot in 2014 (and any remaining spots in future years) with two rounds of home-and-away matches producing one winner. In terms of matches played by each team (and assuming first round participants don’t make it past the second stage), the second round has 6 matches, the third has 10, and the playoffs have at most 4. So, most teams would expect to play no more than 16 matches, with four teams playing either 18 or 20 matches.
I see a potential problem with changing the African qualifiers. If they play down to four groups, as many suggest, and let the second placed teams play off for the final spot, it would be easy for FIFA to take away that fifth spot and give it to another confederation. Let's face it, African teams haven't exactly impressed wildly at the World cup and are still waiting to send two teams past the group stage for the first time. As it is now, their qualifying system is constructed in order to play down to five teams, and FIFA might find it hard to take a team away from them and force them to change everything. But if the Africans themselves make a new qualifying system that plays down to four teams, it might be easy for FIFA to simply take away that fifth spot that the whole system is designed around. If that happens, we are left where we started, but with one less African team at the World Cup. I don't know if it works this way when distributing World Cup spots, but CAF might as well not run the risk.
To avoid that problem I think the confederations should decide their qualifying formats after FIFA tells them how many teams in the World Cup they get.
I believe there should be early group round of eight groups of six(48) leading to 16 teams in two groups of 8. Top 2 from each group go through and their is a play-off between the two 3rd place teams to decide fifh spot.
Then a team could play 26 qualifiers which is too many. Maybe it would work if the second group stage had four groups of four with the second place teams playing two rounds of two leg series.
Maybe you could put the top 8 teams through automatically and put everyone else in groups/play-offs to decide other 8 second round places. Four groups of four could work though.
Initial Phase: Prelims to run around ANC tournament featuring non-confed finals teams (38 of them) in small groups or 3-4. Top 2 from each group advance to combine with 16 confederation finalists. 36 teams left. 4-6 matches. Second round: 6 groups of 6. Top two advance to final 12. 10 matches for confed finals teams. Top two from smaller groups from preliminary round play in same group again w/ home and away carrying over, so only 8 for them. Final round: 2 groups of 6. #1 and #2 from second round groups follow one another into consolidated groups, so there is no need for those teams to play home and away again. 8 more matches per team. Worst case: teams not in confed finals group of 16 may need to play as many as 6+8+8+2=24 matches. Confed finals teams could play as many as 10+8+2 = 20 matches. Good news: for non confed finals teams, they get to play these games over a longer period of time. Over the same 2.5 year period, they would be no more busy than a team qualifying to continential tourney who advances to later rounds. Also: second place teams get a chance to advance and latter groups contain better parity/quality, which should theoretically allow the teams with the most quality to go through.
Well considering the quality of teams available in the African continent, I think for the moment it is fine. Maybe later on when teams start getting progressively better, things may need to change.