I realize a majority of what I say is unlikely to happen. But if I was the dictator of FIFA this is the things I would change to help better the beautiful game. I would make the Olympics an exclusive U-23 tournament with no overage players. It would be mandatory that all clubs must release their players if they were invited by their country to participate in The Olympic Games. I would change the bidding process for The World Cup. I'd have three zones. For example European Zone hosts Germany 2006, Africa/Asia/Oceania Zone hosts South Africa 2010, and The Americas Zone hosts Brazil 2014. Then it would go back to Europe in 2018. I'd change CONCACAF and CONMEBOL to CONAMERICA. Combining the two confederations. This would eliminate the guaranteed World Cup slots that the U.S. and Mexico basically have, but it would prepare them more for the World Cup by playing tougher competition to qualify. You could still have the Gold Cup and Copa America in the year following the World Cup like they do now and those tournaments would be qualification for a tournament to rival The Euros and it would be called The Americas Cup. The quarterfinalists in both The Copa America and Gold Cup would qualify for The Americas Cup. In a situation where Mexico qualified for the quarterfinals in Copa America and Gold Cup since they are a member of CONCACAF that's what counts and the other third place team in the three groups that didn't qualify for the quarterfinals would go. It would be a 16 team tournament. It wouldn't have to interfere at all because you can either have it a week following the Euros is complete or have night games and the time difference would off set having clashing game times. For World Cup qualifying you have a total of 8 combined slots for these confederations already.. So you'd have 4 groups of 6 for a total of 24 teams in the final qualifying phase. The 16 Americas Cup countries would go directly to this stage of World Cup qualifying. With countries 17-45 playing in the preliminary rounds to see who are the last eight teams to get a chance to qualify for the World Cup. So once you get to the final stage of qualifying it would be simple in the four groups, the group winner and runner-up would qualify for the World Cup. So if your a top CONAMERICA country you would only have to play a max 10 games to qualify for the World Cup. Now these countries play 18 games to qualify and overmatch some of their competition fairly easily. This would eliminate some of those unbalanced matchups. With not having team 45 playing team 6 and getting beaten down 8-0. Having a shorter qualifying campaign would also please their clubs in Europe for having to travel back and forth so much. I would do this with UEFA countries as well and I would have for their 13 slots I would have 8 groups with 5 teams per group. That would be 40 teams. That would mean the bottom teams would have preliminary qualifying to get into that 40. I don't know about you but I'm tired of watching Germany spank San Marino 13-0. So I'd have 8 groups. With the top team in each group qualifying as well as the best two runner ups. With the 6 other runner ups playing for the final 3 World Cup slots. My intention in this thread is to have other people throw out what they would do if they were FIFA dictator.
Bride21 - As soon as I saw that you wanted to combine continents of the World you put me off from reading further. Combining continents is something which would never happen as it would be greatly opposed and would mess the Sporting World up big time. Sorry pal but if you were FIFA dictator you would be a major disaster.
I think you're missing the point. It wouldn't be greatly opposed because he's the FIFA dictator. The idea here is to put FIFA politics aside and discuss ideas that might be good, even if unrealistic because they wouldn't be supported by the current power structure. Not sure what you mean about messing up the sporting world, so I can't address that. Hope that helps...
tomwilhelm it looks like you have the plot spot on. GWemporer I've stated that most of what I was putting was unrealistic anyways. For combining continents it was done in one sense with CONCACAF and CONMEBOL. These two continents play together in FIBA. And there are 5 Confederations in that. There would be 5 under my proposal of joining The American confederations. It wasn't to bash ideas it was for other people to put out their own proposals. I'll give you a pass though as you might not have comprehended that as tomwilhelm did.
@scmcbride21 It is interesting, but as a Fifa dictator, you would have no influence on how the federations a structured and which qualifying modus they use. it is surely not in favour of FIFA to have a league system in conmebol. It was choice of conmebol themselves. But I get your points: I would have the world cup final not being played on sunday night, but sunday afternoon, with enough time for the world to watch the celebrating country in the evening news and not having a midnight champ like italy in 2006, when i need to go to work in 7 hours. Additionally a would instist on having both a semi finals on the same day! I would use another system to establish the round of 16 at a world cup. Instead of playing A1 vs B2 and B1 vs A2, i would mix more like A1 vs C2 and C1 vs F2 aso. I would abolish "false throw-ins"! You can make a slingshot throw or an overhead kick or whatever you want. I would have the following world cup place rules 12 europe 4 south america 4 africa 3 asia 3 concacaf = 26 and 6 playoffs with 12 teams 3 of europe 2 of south america 2 of africa 2 of asia 2 of concacaf 1 of oceania
Gibraldo, I realize that. This is all based that maybe FIFA dictator was not the right term. Let's just say dictator of all things football then, but I get your point. I like your idea on mixing groups, in the round of 16. The World Cup is played in the afternoon for fans in the western hemisphere. I think the reason they have it at night for Europe is because it is in prime time for them and daytime for the western hemisphere which tv money is more than their friends to the east. But I get your point. I would still have the match be at night for europe, but I'd have it starting at 7 central european time. I would also consider moving the match to Saturday night for the very reason that you stated that a good number of people have to work the following Monday and less people would have to work following Sunday. Maybe the quarter-final-final schedule would go something like this. QF1 and QF2 on a Friday QF3 and QF 4 on a Saturday Semifinals on a Tuesday 3rd place match on a Friday World Cup Final on a Saturday I also agree with you allocation of slots for World Cup. I think Asia is given too many assured slots. They get to go play Oceania so essential they have 5 guaranteed slots for a confederation that have rarely progressed pass the group stage and on the one occasion Korea Republic got to the semis they did so while hosting. I like intersectional playoffs for the final slots in the World Cup.
correct and fair. it would even reduce this thrill-laming days without a match and what about the "freestyle throw ins"?
If I Was Dictator OF All Things Football How's that for a more accurate description of what the thread is all about?
I would force US Soccer to make US soccer leagues stop using adjectives, verbs, pronouns, and nonsensical nouns as nicknames. No more Clash, Smash, Trash, Mash, Turbo, Impasse, Crew, Burn, Spleen, Excite, Sadden, Amaze, Depress, Anger, Frighten, Fright, Illusion, Allusion, Alliteration, Mnemonic, Ambush, or anything that stupid. Also, no more Europoser names. And I'd change the name of soccer to Jamophiss (just 'cause I want to ). That would end the soccer=football wars. On a serious note, I'd standardize indoor soccer rules, based on the British small-sided rules (and if you don't know about British small sided rules, go to the FA website). You'd have indoor with boards, and indoor without boards, playing with basically the same rules, with modifications. That would take care of futsal and the American game, and all would still be exciting. Each one would stay basically the way they are, since there are common elements in both (not much difference between British small sided rules, American indoor, or futsal, beside the obvious). The only other change I would make to futsal (beside the aforementioned modifications) would be to make the court size more similar to a US college/NBA size court.
Re: If I Was Dictator OF All Things Football If we are going to be picky at that, it should be "If I were"
Amen on the stupid names i.e. Dallas Burn or Tampa Bay Mutiny. Those were terrible. On a side note and a little off topic about the word soccer you get a lot of British people slamming the word soccer, because they call the same game football. Well the technical name is association football to decipher it from other forms of it, but they simply call it football for short. Well, when the British people went over to the U.S. they felt calling it association football was too long and since American Football already claimed the short term version for football they named it soccer. Which was a nickname for the game back in The U.K. way back when. So it's actually a British word that British settlers took over to the U.S.
World Cup kick-off times are dictated by the time zone in which the Cup is played. For example, when the 2002WC was played Korea/Japan, us Europeans were watching games at breakfast! Anyway, if I were 'FIFA Dictator' in the sense that I could have absolute control over all things football, I could possibly remember, let alone type, all the things I'd change. But some ideas nonetheless: * Indepedent enquiry into internal FIFA practices from Havalange onwards - I think we know too many dodgy things have been going on, and those responsible must be outed. * Standardised 'World Calender' - Football worldwide would conform to a standard calender, although any such calender would be flexible enough to allow for both autumn-spring and spring-autumn seasons as well as double seasons. The continental tournaments are also given standard slots, in which club seasons must stop for - an enforced European winter break would be crucial in this respect. Qualifying tournaments are also bunched up into 2/3 weeks periods so as not to disrupt the club season. * Replace Confederation Cup with 'proper' Club World Cup - The clubs would finally have a summer tournament and and a world champion. In exchange, clubs agree to not to engage in any 'Game 39' nonsense! * Reorganisation of confederations - There is a reorganisation of the confederations; UEFA - all current associations. AFC takes over OFC - all OFC associations are taken into AFC, a possible structural split (for competitions) into AFC West and AFC East. CAF - all current associations. CONCACAF and CONMEBOL merge - as has been said, the shared benefits out weight the cons. Gold Cup is stopped. * FIFA insurance - by a determined date, all associations and clubs will organise their insurance policies to feed into a unified 'FIFA insurance', in which payment and responsibility is determined primarily by ability to pay. * Ticket price capping - by a determined date, tickets prices are capped/pegged in relation to nation GDP and other economic markers. * Regional leagues - where the benefits are clear, and where fans are definitely in favour, national leagues should be replaced by regional leagues, ie Scandinavian league, 'Alpine' league. However, pan-continental leagues are strictly prohibited. These regional leagues are given a FIFA 'Special League' badge, as are the big league already in existence (Premier League, La Liga etc), to rubber-stamp that these leagues are intended as permanent and not able to be further expanded. * Free TV - FIFA World Cup and all continental competitions (Euro, Copa America) are free tv events, period. Pay tv is prohibited from broadcasting these tournaments. * No silly laws of the game - celebrating with the crowd, shirt over head, Cameroon's innovative kits are welcomed! * Goal-line technology - tested to destruction and introduced for World Cup, continental, and club continental competition (UEFA Champions League) as soon as possible. * More assistant refs - UEFA's test of penalty box refs is proving successful and should be introduced. A TV ref may assist the ref where a wrong decision has clearly been made, ie offside goals, but he is not a part of the officiating team per se. (I do apologise if I've missed words out, I'm too tired to read it back for mistakes!)
hard_to_beat, that is exactly what I'm talking about. I cannot believe I missed the OFC being absorbed into the AFC.
1. AFC already hosts that. 2. It's a dead-in-the-water competition with low attendances. 3. What little revenue it does generate couldn't even begin to make up for the revenue of additional travel that many countries would be forced to make between Middle East and middle-of-the-nowhere-Pacific.
Well, nothing materially, but I can't imagine an extra preliminary round of WC qualifiers would be a pain, and may well be welcomed by the current whipping boys in Asia - they might win a competitive game!
Just because your in the same confederation doesn't mean you are forced to play teams in the other part of your confederations regions. Let's see, how many Oceania teams would really make it to the final 20 of WC qualifying. Maybe New Zealand that is it. AFC had no problem taking in Australia and they are an Oceanic side. As for the CWC, that was a tongue and cheek response. This isn't a likelihood to happen as FIFA does not demand confederations to absorb one another. This is simply an idea thread of what you would do if you were in charge of everything in world football. So if I was dictator and said AFC must absorb OFC, then AFC absorbs OFC no questions asked.
Who actually of us that posted our ideas are actually out there trying to change the rules? We're simply giving our suggestions. Nationality should have nothing to do with this, but anti-American sentiment seems to still be out there. Nationality should never ever have anything to do with anything in regards for what's good for the game and neither should race or sex for that matter. One thing I'll point out is Americans have the top and most profitable leagues in a good number of sports and know how to run them. There's a reason America is number one. It's called the ability to make changes to better itself......ever hear of it? Back to the topic, what would you do if you we're calling the shots? If you have no suggestions then please don't post on the thread I created. I really want to gather what people think. If your just trolling, please grow up. If not, then please say something with substance.