World Cup Expansion to 40 no, 48 teams

People complained when the World Cup was expanded from 16 teams to 24. They complained when it was expanded to 32. In both cases, it was to give more representation to the other confederations, not Europe and South America. Now they are proposing further expansion. Will Europe get any extra places? I'd be surprised if there was more than one extra European place. It will result in more dross from Asia, Africa and CONCACAF. Let's have a look at the worst team from every confederation last time round:

Honduras: 0 points, 1 goal scored, 8 conceded.
Cameroon: 0 points, 1 goal scored, 9 conceded.
Australia: 0 points, 3 goals scored, 9 conceded.
England: 1 point, 2 goals scored, 4 conceded.
Ecuador: 4 points, 3 goals scored, 3 conceded.

More teams will result in a less competitive tournament overall. The group stage already includes a degree of dross; with an expansion to 40 teams, there'll be even more dross.

Last time round, of Africa's five teams, 2/5 made the second round. Of Asia's four teams, 0/4 teams made it. Of CONCACAF's four teams, 3/4 made the second round. In the tournament before, 2/3 CONCACAF teams made it through. 1/6 from Africa and 2/4 from Asia. Only CONCACAF can have any real claim of under-representation. Europe and South America always have well over 50% of teams making it out of the group stages and never make up the whipping boys in the groups. An expansion of 8 teams will likely result in something like a guaranteed place for Oceania (an extra half a place), seven places for Asia (an extra two and a half places), seven places for Africa (an extra two places), five places for CONCACAF (an extra place and a half), six places for South America (an extra half a place) and fourteen places for Europe (one extra place). That'll be about the height of it. Europe was screwed on the expansion from 24 to 32 and will be screwed again if they expand it again.

If they are going to expand, however, I think it should be 32 extra matches: 8 groups of 5 teams. It makes qualification for the second round open to the top two only and doesn't have all this "best six runners up" stuff. It's much easier to figure out for players, fans, managers and nations, and makes hosting easier too.


Edited by SuperDave84 - 03 Dec 2015 at 2:28pm

True..... but it's preferable to a ten group system. You'd also still have the teams who are playing on the last day kicking off at the same time. I know it's a different sport with less chance of draws, but the format doesn't seem to hurt the rugby world cup.

It can be partially avoided by having either the top seed or the bottom seed as the team not playing on the last day. The top seed should already have qualified and the bottom seed should already be out, although of course neither can be guaranteed, and a mutually convenient draw could be enough to knock out any team.

Also, the current system doesn't avoid mutually convenient results either, as the Sweden Denmark 2-2 in Euro 2004 demonstrated (although I don't think that was deliberate, just convenient).

Incidentally, it doesn't look like there would be any extra places for Europe at all:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/dec/03/world-cup-expand-40-teams-fifa-reform

"The change is being seen as an attempt to appeal to the majority of the 209 Fifa members who feel Uefa currently has too many spots at the 32-team tournament. The World Cup was expanded from 24 teams to 32 in 1994 and the further expansion would allow Fifa to increase the number of slots available to those outside Europe."

The reason Europe has the most places is because it's the most competitive confederation. If there is an issue with the number of places each confederation has, then the solution does not have to be expansion: you can have a system that assesses the performance of the various confederations (be it by "average performance at a world cup", or otherwise), and use that to tinker with the allocations. Of course, we all know, on that system, Europe would only get *more* places. The expansion has absolutely nothing to do with increasing the quality of the tournament or the quality of the teams who get there: it's grubby politics.

The idea is awful.

Africa has the most countries attempting to qualify ifirc and lowest ratio per teams qualifying Europe and South America have the most.

Anything that increases our chances is to be welcomed.

Who cares if the groups are sh*te, the classic games all come in the knock outs anyway

RogerMilla wrote: Anything that increases our chances is to be welcomed. Who cares if the groups are sh*te, the classic games all come in the knock outs anyway

But it straight up doesn't: there'll likely be the same number of places of Europe and more for the other confederations.

If they want to increase the World Cup to 40, why not abolish the confederation qualifiers completely?

Great idea and people need to open their eyes. Europe are only going to lose places if it is not expanded and countries like us would be the losers. Africa and Asia are only getting stronger in football and for all their countries their 5 places each is not going to satisfy them. Compare the number of African and Asian players in the CL to the number of Irish, Scottish or Welsh. We need this as if Asia and Africa get an extra 1 place each only Europe will lose places.

Africa have the power because they vote as one in the FIFA President elections. If you win Africa, you win the Presidency.

Considering we in Europe are financial powerhouse/lifeblood of the game, we have been severly let down by the powers that be. We should have at least 20 teams are a 32 team WC. We should be able to bully the rest into submission.

Landon Donovan wrote: Africa have the power because they vote as one in the FIFA President elections. If you win Africa, you win the Presidency. Considering we in Europe are financial powerhouse/lifeblood of the game, we have been severly let down by the powers that be. We should have at least 20 teams are a 32 team WC. We should be able to bully the rest into submission.

Spot on.

Indiscriminate airstrikes would be my suggestion along with a constant napalm barrage combined with delusions of grandeur leaflets being airdropped onto FIFA's HQ.