I think that will never happen. We are not Asia and Oceania (this one, a bunch of islands - including Australia - with no representativeness at all in football, and can easilly be absorbed by AFC), but very distinct continents (not only geographically but also footballistic). Culturally and climate wise, of course, Mexico's, Central American & Caribbean tropico-latinidad approaches us but the geographic link to the Northern hemisphere no doubt weighs a lot - in that aspect Mexico is heavilly related to the US, which in the past annexed great part of its terrritory and consequently Spanish is nowadays practically a 2nd language in US. Their federations must grow independently from ours: they have their regional 'accounts' to adjust ... PS: Tell FIFA to merge UEFA & CAF too, if that's the trend...
Make the world cup every 2 or 3 years. Free live tv games. Keep champions league the way it is, and not what platini is supporting for more teams from smaller countries
lol, irony and ignorance. Every one of your "reasons" (if they could even be called that) can be used for how AFC, a confed you want to expand, is already.
Err... Have we been introduced before? ... My pleasure. Sorry, your formulation is quite 'complex' and sounds inextricable to my ignorant mind. Mind rewriting it in a more simplorium way?... When did I say I want to 'expand' AFC?... I used the word 'absorb'. In the AFC/Oceania merge though what would there be to be 'added'? (maybe Australia? New Zealand? Solomon Islands? That's very little or almost nothing in order for you to consider it a full 'expansion'). In the case of CONMEBOL & CONCAFAF, yes, it would be a typical case of 'expansion': one would add to the other. Mexico, US, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Trinidad-Tobago alltogether have had considerably more impressive WC participations than Oceanian countries.
Ignorance: Australia has been in AFC since 2006 Do you think the climate in Middle East, China, and Pacific Islands are in any way similar? Do you think football played in India is anything like South Korea? What exactly are the geographic connections between Pacific Islands and Uzbekistan? Irony: What you actually said is "(OFC) can easilly be absorbed by AFC" Now, once you've researched the questions categorized under "Ignorance" above... please tell me how that demonstrates North and South America are more distinct than a Confederation you apparently think isn't distinct enough.
How about a World Cup every 2 years and eliminate some of the other tournaments like the Confederation Cup, Gold Cup etc.
To begin: in no moment in my post I let opened a chance for you to 'interpret' it as if I weren't aware of such a trivial fact. It's you who's assuming I didn't know it, buddy (lol). All I said was: That 'can' unequivocally has an atemporal function in the phrase and can be easily be substituted by 'could have been, as in fact it was'. Sorry, in that case the 'ignorance' (I’d use naïveté: it’s more elegant with a Forum mate) obviously was yours - I’d advise you to start having a few lessons not only on 'how to write' but also on 'how to read'. But you won’t relent: So what? ... I never mentioned in my post that Oceania and Asia in general had the 'same climate' or that 'their football was similar'. I just said that one footballistically did exist (AFC) and the other hardly existed (OFC): that's why their merging is (or was) a simple and uncomplicated matter. Let’s keep dissecting your brilliant ‘reasoning’: Wow ... Again, you're demanding too much of my poor intellect... I’ll try to understand it by parts though: Let's call X that affirmation of mine. In the sequence, you state that X leads to the ‘conclusion’ - which we’ll call Y - and you mistakenly attribute it to me (!), that: ???... Now, please tell me HOW & WHEN could you attribute to me a totally discoordinated & non-sensical phrase like that (Y )? A phrase, BTW, entirely ‘formulated’ by you … It’s obvious that my X logically cannot relate at all to your Y !... If I said before that if “one confederation existed and the other (practically) didn’t” how could I have said that the only confederation I recognized as such was ‘more distinct’ than any 'other'???... Besides, man...I went to school! I’d never write such awkward & stupid phrase as ‘A is more distinct than B’… More distinct doesn’t exist: either something is distinct from the other or isn’t… I wouldn’t say anything if you didn’t come here burping ‘wisdom’ and calling other people names. Accept my shake-hands.
lol I guess when you can't reason with your own ability, say somebody is a sockpuppet. Feel free to ask the mods, because I'm not.
Actually this is what you said... "In the AFC/Oceania merge though what would there be to be 'added'? (maybe Australia? New Zealand? Solomon Islands? That's very little or almost nothing in order for you to consider it a full 'expansion')." Clearly, you were ignorant on the matter. Again, you can't even quote yourself. "We are not Asia and Oceania ... but very distinct continents (not only geographically but also footballistic)." Implies directly that football style is similar across AFC and OFC. Furthermore, that there are strong geographic links. Rest assured, there was plenty of claptrap about climate as well. However, I cut that portion out of your run-on sentence to make the comparison you wrote unavoidable. We are not Asia and Oceania ... but very distinct continents Thereby you believe AFC is not distinct. Even in a binary system, 1 > 0.
This man is on the money. REPPED! I've been of the opinion for ages that the Americas should have 1 body and the OFC is a joke on it's own now that Australia has left. With 4 bodies, there will be a more equal number of sides, so qualification for international and continental tournaments. What does the AFC get out of absorbing the OFC? 0.5 qualification spot and the potential of a decent unit in New Zealand in the future. You may scoff at it but it is still improving the sport. What does a CON-America body bring? Less Jack Warner, more uniformed, top competition for all sides in the Americas. The USA/Canada would benefit by rubbing shoulders with the likes of Brazil and Argentina a lot more. Likewise more television money would likely occur which can only benefit everyone. I can't get my head around all this CONCACAF Champion's League, SuperLiga faff... Just have 1 'CONAMERICA Libertadores Copa' to rival the UEFA CL with a 'Copa Pan-America' below that. 4 strong blocks are better than the mish-mash we have at the moment. The Americas could be a lot stronger united. Scotch what are you on about BTW, unless you are playing devil's advocate for the sake of it!
What he is on about is simply asking the question how does absorbing OFC into AFC help either body? When you ask that there are very few benefits for either body, and a lot of disadvantages.
It doesn't help the OFC. It gives the AFC more votes, an extra 0.5 WCQ place, solves the headache of Wellington in the A-League, etc. etc. I don't see the problem of having 4 bodies? What are these 'lot of disadvantages' you seem so eager to bring up but not mention what they are. Please share them...
Not been reading Scotch17's posts? Disadvantages for OFC Most are small nations that can't afford to travel. Its a major effort just to get them involved in international football at a regional level. It's a major strain to ask them to travel to Asia (which is a hell of a long way away for most of them). Qualifying for an Asian tournament would send most of the clubs in OFC broke. Losing confedreational status means they lose direct access to FIFA development grants. As part of AFC they would be competing for developmental grants with many other nations. Loss of access to FIFA youth tournaments. These tournaments may not be considered of much importance in some other parts of the world, but they remain a place where talented players from OFC can showcase their skills and possibly get proffessional contracts. Australia monopolised these places over the years, and many of the Australian players playing as proffessionals in Europe were noticed in these tournaments. It is how Australia managed to develop a reasonable team over the years. Other OFC teams can now use this path to develop as its been opened up by Australia's deperture to AFC. Disadvantages to AFC AFC is already the largest confederation geographically. It has struggled under this handicap to provide international competition for its middling and lower ranked countries. For example, I would hate to think how a match between the Maldives and Tahiti could be organised. AFC currently is accepting its responsibility to improive the playing standards within it at all levels. It provides a variety of competions at club and international level to suit nations at different levels of development. Adopting responsibility for another group would jeopardise this by placing too great a burden on its resources. The addition of another dozen or so minnows who are geographically remote from anywhere else in AFC would be too much of a strain. The best current answer is to keep these two regions separate. If football is to develop in OFC it would best to keep the regional separate so that FIFA can continue to directly assist. It may make some sense to combine the regions in the future, but right now it doesn't.
I would allow teams to sign a replacement for every player that gets injured for more than 3 months regardless of the time of the year.
FIFA Dictator, eh? I would merge CONMEBOL and CONCACAF (CONAMERICA sounds good) and also dissolve the OFC, allowing OFC teams to either join AFC or be an 'independent' FIFA country that cannot qualify for the World Cup. I'd also encourage OFC countries to merge FA's so that they can become more competitive. I'd also create a genuine World Cup where each of my four confederations would have 8 slots. Global interest should be valued over competition as spreading soccer's popularity will be more valuable in the end than having the European countries + Brazil and Argentina beat each other up every four years. I'd also rotate the host by conference. I'd put 2018 in the AFC, either China or Australia. 2022 would go to England. 2026 to Africa (if they can't afford infastructure FIFA should help them out as Africa is the future of soccer). I'd also create a 'straight red' policy for obvious diving. Questionable dives where there is only a litle bit of contact will result in a yellow. This is a contact sport and the physical aspects of the game need to be enforced. I'd also abolish penalty shootouts and replace it with golden goal overtime. If the match lasts too long then they can take a day off and resume later until a goal is scored but penalty shootouts are unfair. I'd also be harsher on racist fans. I wouldn't punish the actual team, instead I would hunt down the fans responsible if it is a minority of if it is a majority have the team play in empty stadiums for a couple of matches. I'd also ban all restrictions on foreign players as well as bans on youth players leaving their countries. These rules are nationalistic and stupid and will ruin the game in the end. Finally, I'd set a full-scale global grassroots project, helping poorer countries develop their soccer, as well as their economy. Soccer should transend sport.
If i was a FIFA Dictator i would make CONCACAF absorb OFC. .... You know, i used to disagree with Scotch about the whole OFC should be absorbed into AFC thing, but after a while i was getting what he was saying, OFC isn't going to offer anything of value to AFC so there's no point in even talking of the matter as both confederations are better off the way they are. First of all, for club tournaments, how are these OFC countries going to be able to compete? Even the big clubs in all of the big countries in the bigger leagues in Asia LOSE money in the Champions League due to the IMMENSE cost of flights and accommodation. The prize pool is being increased to $16million for next season's Champions League and that is still not enough to pay for all the expenses, I cant even begin to think of how much money will be sucked out of the already poor OFC countries if they had to compete in the AFC Cup or President Cup's which are for second and third tier footballing nations and clubs where there is little to no prize money on offer. Every Asian country has some sort of domestic league set up, If OFC was to join, the only proffesional league let alone, decent league at all in the Oceanic region would be the A-League. The OFC countries, besides New Zealand lack the infrastructure to do anything about this, and geographically, their distance away from the rest of Asia isn't going to help this either. I won't even start on the problems for continental championships and development at NT level. .......... Anyway enough of that. Crack down on diving, Bring in 2 referees instead of 1, stop the ongoing problems with Naturalization ie: Qatar. Crack down on corruption...bunch of...probably scrap the confed cup and host the WC every 3 years...i have a few other things but other people in this thread have already mentioned them.
Repped. That's the only way we could have a fair slots division in a World Cup. And also the only way for CONMEBOL and CONCACAF to merge without any problems for both. Unrepped. With that there wouldn't be the need for confederations anymore. All good players of the world would go to Europe attracted by the money and would become Brittish, Italian, German, French or Spanish. And the World Cup would become a global Eurocup necessarilly disputed every 4 years in...Europe
I seriously doubt that most players would abandon their home countries just because they play in Europe. Would you?
Most of the time they only do this because they cannot break into the starting lineup in their home country.