And just went football couldn't get any more wacky, Fifa is pushing for a biennial World Cup. Really? Why does football do this to us?
More is better is always the assumption of promoters of entertainment. Bigger is better, etc. But, sometimes there's big public push-back. The European Super League fiasco (which may be reigniting) shows that people are not necessarily looking for more. Chocolate cake is only special when it's comparatively rare. Make it an every day desert and it will lose its luster. They think Real Madrid vs. Inter Milan twice a year or more is a good thing. Nowadays, when they meet it's special. If it's every week, it's no big deal and the ratings are not so awesome, for any of the matches. Same thing for this. Biennial World Cups will dilute the magic of it being every 4 years. It's a chance to get more cash for the organization from TV rights holders and advertisers. It's a chance for more fraud and corruption. It's a chance for more nations to piss a ton of money away building stadiums that will never be used again, and all the money that gets spread around from that process. (We are looking at you, Brazil.)
Just the latest in the power struggle between FIFA and UEFA I guess. UEFA will be opposed as it squeezes out the time for the Euros. There surely have to be some years with no summer tournament, to allow the top players some rest. I guess other confederations already have 2-yearly tournaments (CAF & CONCACAF at least) and somehow fit them in with a 4 year world cup cycle. Will that still be possible with a 2 year world cup? Doubt it. I would think the middle-tier nations of any confederation would be against this. The ones for whom getting to a world cup is difficult/impossible but are able to compete in their confederation finals.
The odd years are when Europeans are qualifying for either the WC or the Euros. There is no down time. FIFA makes chang hand-over-fist, but their want of money is utterly insatiable.
The welfare of the players must be paramount. It's a crazy idea. The only way to make it work from a European perspective is to create an ESL with those teams leaving their respective FAs so the players continue with the same amount of games. League, national cup, european club games, euro national games, world national games, friendlies. As it is there's already too many games for players imo.
What is even more disgusting about this is Arsène Wenger, who has become some kind of technocrat at Fifa, is pushing this big time, the same Arsène Wenger who used to moan about international fixtures and find mysterious injuries to his Arsenal players just before the international breaks.
He's pushing for a three month international break so all the qualifiers can be got out the way at once. I'm not sure what all other non-internationals are meant to do in the meantime