News: Sepp Blatter threatens to cut Europe and S. America WC spots in favor of Africa and Asia

Unak78 · Oct 25, 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...ms-says-Sepp-Blatter.html?ico=sport^headlines

...so that was said. Probably get alot of people in the affected nations upset with him. Especially South America. Where I come in on this, is that I would love to see other parts of the World get more representation, but only if it comes by way of expanding the tournament as a whole. Keep Europe and S. America where they are because I definitely can't see limiting South America considering their track record but I wouldn't increase them because there's only 10 countries. I'm not going to go into the logistics of such a proposal, but there's a way to do this and still keep all parties involved happy.

As it is, Africa isn't as much of a concern today for me bc it seems like the better countries are finding ways to be more consistent in qualifying. CAF may return the same countries as 2010 which isn't a bad thing since I feel experience and establishing a track record helps a country progress. More spots will help the emerging regions like Eastern and Southern Africa who've been frozen out by West and North Africa.

I can also see maybe giving Oceania another spot to get new blood in and generate enthusiasm among those parts of the World. Maybe you can get more of the Arab world outside of North Africa involved as well. So right track, but wrong on execution. Sepp seems to always find ways to piss people off.

BocaFan · Oct 25, 2013

Yeah, what the WC needs is more Iran v Angola matches. I personally just can't get enough of that 2006 classic.

Seriously though... I'm okay with given CAF and AFC more playoff spots to "prove themselves" against the 2nd-tier teams of CONMEBOL and UEFA as part of the WC qualifying process. (They'll lose them anyway and we'll be back to where we started...)

Unak78 · Oct 25, 2013

BocaFan said: ↑

Yeah, what the WC needs is more Iran v Angola matches. I personally just can't get enough of that 2006 classic.

Seriously though... I'm okay with giving CAF and AFC more playoff spots to "prove themselves" against the 2nd-tier teams of CONMEBOL and UEFA as part of the WC qualifying process. (They'll lose them anyway and we'll be back to where we started...)
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I think ppl tend to overrate Europe's second-tier teams a bit. They qualify a lot of teams to the knockouts, but they also send home a lot after the group stages. But there isn't as much depth in AFC and CAF but there are growing national sides. I definitely think that if Europe opened some of their spots to playoffs they'd lose a spot or two which people wouldn't expect. South America has proven that they can hang onto their spots over the years.

BocaFan · Oct 25, 2013

Unak78 said: ↑

I think ppl tend to overrate Europe's second-tier teams a bit. They qualify a lot of teams to the knockouts, but they also send home a lot after the group stages. But there isn't as much depth in AFC and CAF but there are growing national sides. I definitely think that if Europe opened some of their spots to playoffs they'd lose a spot or two which people wouldn't expect. South America has proven that they can hang onto their spots over the years.
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If a team like Mexico or South Korea winds-up in the playoffs, then perhaps a surprise would occur. But most of the time it will be a team like Jordan or Uzbekistan. Sorry, but Croatia, Turkey or Sweden beats them 10 times out of 10.

Iranian Monitor · Oct 25, 2013

Iran has actually played in the playoffs before against UEFA. In fact, we faced UEFA's best runner up team, namely Ireland, which had not lost a match throughout the qualifiers and in a long time, for the 2002 World Cup qualifying playoffs. They suffered their first loss against Iran in Tehran. True, they advanced having defeated us in Dublin 2:0, beating us 2:1 on aggregate, but we had plenty of chances to score an away goal in Dublin.

Anyway, until we play these vaunted 2nd tier UEFA sides, I will have to just rely on our most recent results against them in friendlies. We have played 6 matches against teams from UEFA since our loss to Portugal in the 2006 World Cup, our last against Russia which we won, and our record is 5 wins, 1 draw, and zero losses.

P.S.

One of the unfortunate things about World Cup 2006 is that the world never got to see an in form Ali Karimi, a superb player who was truly among the best before he got seriously injured playing for Bayern Munich against Hamburg before the World Cup. He was out several weeks and wasn't really fit for the World Cup either. In fact, Ali Karimi was never the same player again, but from 2004 until his injury, there were few like him in the world. A true gem of a player.

papermache16 · Oct 25, 2013

.5 spots for them first, please Sepp.

Unak78 · Oct 25, 2013

BocaFan said: ↑

If a team like Mexico or South Korea winds-up in the playoffs, then perhaps a surprise would occur. But most of the time it will be a team like Jordan or Uzbekistan. Sorry, but Croatia, Turkey or Sweden beats them 10 times out of 10.
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This is a good point. The depth as you go down from the bigger nations is uncertain. But, for the most part, noone around the World can even agree on the quality of those teams on the bubble anyway bc they rarely ever see them. I'd say that CAF used to be a lot more unpredictable but now seems like the gulf in class is so much more certain that even a screwed up qualification format like the current one isn't enough to produce surprise qualifiers anymore. A lot more nations who noone will ever see.

But that's why my earlier point about expanding the tournament overall would be good. Because we're not only talking about continents that are underrepresented anymore, it's regions. Asia is now pretty much represented by Australia and the more eastern nations like Korea or Japan. Concacaf is becoming more and more about the US, Mexico and a few Central American countries. And CAF is now a West and North African affair and is becoming increasingly more just West African. So 75% of the continent is becoming frozen out of the tournament.

So expanding the tournament maybe gets the Middle East, India, Southern and Eastern Africa, and the Carribean nations more involved. Perhaps this helps them develop their football.

vancity eagle · Oct 25, 2013

BocaFan said: ↑

Seriously though... I'm okay with given CAF and AFC more playoff spots to "prove themselves" against the 2nd-tier teams of CONMEBOL and UEFA as part of the WC qualifying process. (They'll lose them anyway and we'll be back to where we started...)
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I agree with this, but I don't necessarily think they would lose.

Teams like Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria would have a good chance to beat teams like Ecuador, Chile, Greece, Slovenia, Ukraine, Iceland etc. Not to mention that it is very possible that teams like Nigeria, Ghana, CIV may even end up as one of the playoff teams, which would even increase the likelihood of a CAF team winning the playoff.

Bosnian Diamond · Oct 25, 2013

I think this is a response to Platini threatening to invite non-European nations to the Euro.

themightymagyar · Oct 25, 2013

vancity eagle said: ↑

I agree with this, but I don't necessarily think they would lose.

Teams like Senegal, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria would have a good chance to beat teams like Ecuador, Chile, Greece, Slovenia, Ukraine, Iceland etc. Not to mention that it is very possible that teams like Nigeria, Ghana, CIV may even end up as one of the playoff teams, which would even increase the likelihood of a CAF team winning the playoff.
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Agree with everything you just said except for Chile. I don't really see any African team beating them.

Unak78 · Oct 25, 2013

Bosnian Diamond said: ↑

I think this is a response to Platini threatening to invite non-European nations to the Euro.
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That happened? If that became a thing, you may as well just create a direct competitor to the World Cup and have done with it. South America might also be seen as doing the same by trying to expand the Copa America.

Bran · Oct 25, 2013

That would be a huge loss of quality. African and Asian nations don't have a good recent record on the world cup to warrant a near future expansion. 2010 was supposed to be the cup of Africa, Africa's time to shine. Almost all of them crashed out in the group stage except Ghana who required a good dose of luck to do so. Asian nations did a bit better, but only a bit. The current batch of teams who are qualified or are on the verge of qualifying will most likely crash out in the group stage as well. So why should African and Asian nations get nod above clearly far better South American and European nations? A side like Ukraine will easily beat almost every single second tier African team except for maybe Senegal and a side like Peru will easily beat teams such as Jordan and Uzbekistan. It would be better to expand the world cup as a whole or let the second tier Euro/South American duke it out against the second tier Asian/African teams but that will most likely won't end well for them...

USOutlaw16 · Oct 25, 2013

The last African team NOT named Ghana to get past the first round was Senegal in 2002. Japan and South Korea are the only Asian teams to have made it past the first round more than once IIRC. And only once has a CONCACAF nation NOT named the USA or Mexico advanced to the next round (Costa Rica in Italia '90). If anything, S. America and Europe deserve MORE spots and not less, though to be fair, this is the World Cup after all, not the UEFA/CONMEBOL cup.

whitecloud · Oct 25, 2013

I actually think the confederations are too large, and certain regions have been left behind because those confederations are too large. Southeast Asia for instance hasn't been represented in the World Cup since 1938, and that was by preindependence Dutch East Indies. Regional federations like the Asean Football Federation, Caribbean Football Union, Council of Southern Africa Football Associations and others would probably have greater access to the World Cup via the half spot of a playoff than they do currently in confederation wide competitions. Even if they struggled and lost the vast majority of those playoffs, that would still be better than what they currently have.

Unak78 · Oct 25, 2013

USOutlaw16 said: ↑

If anything, S. America and Europe deserve MORE spots and not less, though to be fair, this is the World Cup after all, not the UEFA/CONMEBOL cup.
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I think that's the point that Sepp was making which I'm in agreement with. But in the grand scheme, I think it's a bit unfair to judge the worth of a multitude of second tier teams based of the performance of the middle-to-upper tier UEFA teams. African teams had a disappointing World Cup, but I think it's a bit disingenuous to discount that CIV was good enough both years to make the knockouts. It wasn't a lack of quality that hurt them there. You can't forget that for all of the impact that UEFA sides make when in the WC they too have sides who qualify yet have no shot of making an impact. Greece, Serbia, Poland, Slovenia, these are countries that qualify but never make much of an impact. Switzerland is seeded yet has only made the knockouts once in many years.

The point is that exposure to World Cup competition does allow these teams advantages that other countries in other continents don't have. Countries that are beginning to repeat as qualifiers like the US, Ghana, Korea, etc are showing an increasing level of confidence and tactical sophistication that comes from playing important tournaments. So expanding the tournament to include more of the rest of the world might be more of a bonus to the world's game than people seem to think.

Decreasing UEFA's allotment is a pipe dream and doesn't make much sense when the tournament is due for overall expansion anyway. Especially when so many are constantly clamoring for new blood anyway. What do those teams do when they qualify? They struggle, of course they will. But people still like to see them. Why?

Let's say you add maybe 8 new sides to the tournament and add two new groups and have tiebreakers or some other system, you might get a few more tough games to watch. But these statements come from people who spend hour after hour, week on end, watching Barca or Man U run up 7-nil scorlines in La Liga or the EPL. Or they watch Stoke take the air out of the ball for 90 minutes,... but no we can't have bad football in the World Cup. This ignores the fact that alot of the worst World Cup matches are group stage matches played between top tier teams who are afraid to actually play football for fear of conceding. Adding more teams with nothing to lose will not detract from the tournament's quality. If anything it will inject it with some life. Put some teams out there who are still happy to be there.

mfw13 · Oct 25, 2013

The fact that Blatter said this is the clearest sign the he is planning to run for re-election at the next FIFA Congress. It's the same strategy in the past....

whitecloud · Oct 25, 2013

FIFA can have their cake and eat it too. The big money to be made from any future expansion is in an extra tier of single elimination playoffs. Extra group stage games have a fairly limited monetary benefit to FIFA. Providing access to smaller nations in extra group stage games would cost FIFA nothing.

mfw13 · Oct 25, 2013

Blatter is playing a very dangerous game.

Both he, and Havelange before him, have continually gotten themselves re-elected by bribing the small African and Asian nations in various ways, shapes, and forms (including additional WC spots). But there is a point at which the bigger and more historically important footballing nations get sick and tired of being the minority in a tyranny of the incompetent majority and choose to leave FIFA, especially given the fiasco that is Qatar 2022 as well as the poor performance of Asian and African nations at the World Cup.

BocaFan · Oct 25, 2013

Need more AFC teams because Asian futbol is top notch:

USOutlaw16 · Oct 25, 2013

BocaFan said: ↑

Need more AFC teams because Asian futbol is top notch:

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Your 2022 World Cup hosts ladies and gentleman.....but that's a topic for another discussion of course.

vancity eagle · Oct 26, 2013

themightymagyar said: ↑

Agree with everything you just said except for Chile. I don't really see any African team beating them.
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I could easily see Ghana, Nigeria, or CIV beat Chile, and like I said before these type of sides could possibly end up as a playoff side if they slipped up.

Ghana tied Chile in 2012 without much of their first team. CIV tied Chile way back in 2006, and a Nigeria B team beat Venezuela (who finished just behind Uruguay) 3-1 at the end of 2012. Nigeria also tied Colombia right before the 2010 WC. I see no evidence to suggest a team like Chile cannot be beaten by some top African sides.

vancity eagle · Oct 26, 2013

vancity eagle said: ↑

I could easily see Ghana, Nigeria, or CIV beat Chile, and like I said before these type of sides could possibly end up as a playoff side if they slipped up.

Ghana tied Chile in 2012 without much of their first team. CIV tied Chile way back in 2006, and a Nigeria B team beat Venezuela (who finished just behind Uruguay) 3-1 at the end of 2012. Nigeria also tied Colombia right before the 2010 WC. I see no evidence to suggest a team like Chile cannot be beaten by some top African sides.
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Guinho · Oct 26, 2013

BocaFan said: ↑

Yeah, what the WC needs is more Iran v Angola matches. I personally just can't get enough of that 2006 classic.

Seriously though... I'm okay with given CAF and AFC more playoff spots to "prove themselves" against the 2nd-tier teams of CONMEBOL and UEFA as part of the WC qualifying process. (They'll lose them anyway and we'll be back to where we started...)
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Yeah, because what the WC needs is yet more interchangeable Eastern European clone sides to produce an utterly dull tournament. Besides, if they started giving more slots to Europe they be dredging pretty deep to bring in side that would lose to other confederations

Guinho · Oct 26, 2013

Bran said: ↑

That would be a huge loss of quality. African and Asian nations don't have a good recent record on the world cup to warrant a near future expansion. 2010 was supposed to be the cup of Africa, Africa's time to shine. Almost all of them crashed out in the group stage except Ghana who required a good dose of luck to do so. Asian nations did a bit better, but only a bit. The current batch of teams who are qualified or are on the verge of qualifying will most likely crash out in the group stage as well. So why should African and Asian nations get nod above clearly far better South American and European nations? A side like Ukraine will easily beat almost every single second tier African team except for maybe Senegal and a side like Peru will easily beat teams such as Jordan and Uzbekistan. It would be better to expand the world cup as a whole or let the second tier Euro/South American duke it out against the second tier Asian/African teams but that will most likely won't end well for them...
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Actually, as I recall, it took some serious cheating and bad luck to keep Ghana out of the semis

Guinho · Oct 26, 2013

To be clear, I think the data show the allocation is just about right. I think what we actually have is a pretty equitable distribution on 29 slots, plus one extra for the main ROW confederations. Overall, not a bad approach