Friday, July 25, 2008

Hypothetical: Worldwide World Cup Qualifying

I was reading a few threads on Bigsoccer about possibly expanding the World Cup, which is something that was considered by FIFA a few years ago. It actually seems kind of inevitable given the almost certain expansion of Euro 2016 to 24 teams. It's sad because 32 teams is the perfect number to set up a 16 team second round. You have no craziness with third place teams advancing, for example.

Anyway, people were discussing how the extra berths would be distributed between the confederations, and whether or not there would still be inter-confederation playoffs as we have today. It seems to be a popular notion in those type of threads to suggest having either more teams in the playoffs or having a small tournament of sorts between the final 4 or 8 teams. I don't mind the notion of that because why should Asia get New Zealand when we'll likely get Uruguay or Colombia? But it also reminds me of another oft-mentioned scenario, which eliminates the problems of divvying up the World Cup berths altogether: worldwide qualifying between all confederations.

I would not have a problem with worldwide qualification.I don't think the travel costs would be that bad, since you could narrow it down to eliminate the minnows first. FIFA could always pitch in to help if necessary (they do that now to help build fields, stuff like that). Obviously it would not be popular with the European countries, but you'd likely only have 5 away trips which wouldn't be so bad.

I think it would make for a higher quality final tournament, though perhaps at the expense of a tournament with true worldwide interest. I don't expect it to happen, but hypotheticals are fun, so here's what I would suggest:

  • Each confederation has a few early qualifying rounds to eliminate the minnows
  • 90 team final round = 15 groups of 6 teams
  • Top 2 in each group qualify, along with the top 3rd place finisher (and host)
  • Top pot includes the top 15 teams worldwide
  • Other pots are broken down by confederation

Final 90 teams:

34-UEFA
16-AFC
16-CAF
12-CONCACAF
10-CONMEBOL
2-OFC

Top Seeds:

Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, England, France, Ghana, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine

I assume they would just take the round of 16 from the previous WC. Australia as the worst ranked of the 16 get left out.


The rest:

AFC:

Australia | Bahrain | China PR | Iran | Iraq | Japan | Jordan | Korea DPR | Korea Republic | Kuwait | Oman | Qatar | Saudi Arabia | Syria | United Arab Emirates | Uzbekistan

CAF:

Angola | Burkina Faso | Cameroon | Congo DR | Côte d'Ivoire | Egypt | Guinea | Libya | Mali | Morocco | Nigeria | Rwanda | Senegal | Togo | Tunisia

CONCACAF:

Canada | Costa Rica | Cuba | El Salvador | Guatemala | Haiti | Honduras | Jamaica | Panama | Trinidad and Tobago | U.S.A.

CONMEBOL:

Bolivia | Chile | Colombia | Paraguay | Peru | Uruguay | Venezuela

OFC

New Caledonia | New Zealand

UEFA

Austria | Belgium | Bosnia and Herzegovina | Bulgaria | Croatia | Czech Republic | Denmark | Finland | FYR Macedonia | Greece | Hungary | Republic of Ireland | Israel | Lithuania | Northern Ireland | Norway | Poland | Romania | Russia | Scotland | Serbia | Slovakia | Slovenia | Turkey


Mock Draw:

Group 01: Sweden, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, New Zealand, Canada
Group 02: Brazil, Bulgaria, Slovenia, North Korea, Libya, Honduras
Group 03: Ecuador, Austria, Denmark, Australia, Morocco, Jamaica
Group 04: Switzerland, Greece, Iraq, South Korea, Nigeria, Cuba
Group 05: France, Romania, Uzbekistan, Rwanda, New Caledonia, USA
Group 06: Spain, Russia, Serbia, Bahrain, Burkina Faso, Colombia
Group 07: Italy, Poland, Norway, China, Senegal, Venezuela
Group 08: Ukraine, Israel, Czech, Syria, Mali, Panama
Group 09: Mexico, Belgium, Scotland, Oman, Guinea, Peru
Group 10: England, Ireland, Kuwait, Egypt, Costa Rica, Paraguay
Group 11: Ghana, Finland, Bosnia, Japan, Togo, Uruguay
Group 12: Netherlands, Lithuania, Iran, Congo DR, Guatemala, Chile
Group 13: Portugal, Macedonia, N.Ireland, Qatar, Tunisia, Haiti
Group 14: Germany, Turkey, UAE, Angola, El Salvador, Bolivia
Group 15: Argentina, Croatia, Slovakia, Jordan, Cote d'Ivoire, Trinidad

So in order to qualify, you'd have to finish top two in your group (except for one lucky/good third place team). You'd definitely have the potential for some groups of varying qualify, but overall I think things would be pretty balanced, like in group 4 for example. I don't think you would see 20 European teams qualifying either.

Comments on "Hypothetical: Worldwide World Cup Qualifying"

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (9:08 AM, July 25, 2008) : 

Why not have the previous World Cup Champion get an automatic finals berth? Gets rid of the best third place finisher and would ensure that top 16 finishers at the previous WC get seeds.

 

Anonymous Anonymous said ... (8:54 PM, July 25, 2008) : 

I like seeing teams like T&T in the World Cup. Your plan would almost eliminate any chance of that; we'd see virtually the same teams in the Finals every time. Boring.

 

Blogger PhilOxford said ... (6:57 AM, July 29, 2008) : 

The problem with worldwide qualification for european teams would be that most players will be playing league football at the same time. It can be enough trouble getting players from their clubs for fairly local games. Also, as a small country (Northern Ireland) I dislike the idea or eliminating minnows early. The likes of Andorra should be allowed a proper qualifying campaign even if they have no chance of qualifying.

 

Blogger Unknown said ... (1:19 PM, July 20, 2009) : 

Group 15 would be so difficult.
I do not agree that the same team would make it to the WC, the only thing it would have more European teams in the WC for sure.
I don't see why Concacaf get 12 teams and CAF gets only 16, Africa 16th team is definitely better than Concacaf's 8th or even 7th

 

Blogger Unknown said ... (1:19 PM, July 20, 2009) : 

Group 15 would be so difficult.
I do not agree that the same team would make it to the WC, the only thing it would have more European teams in the WC for sure.
I don't see why Concacaf get 12 teams and CAF gets only 16, Africa 16th team is definitely better than Concacaf's 8th or even 7th

 

post a comment