Sky Sports News HQ @SkySportsNewsHQ 4 BREAKING: FIFA council unanimously vote to expand World Cup to 48 teams from 2026. 48 teams to be divided into 16 groups of three. please log in to view this image
This will lead to even more meaningless qualifying games for the better teams. On the other hand, if might give Scotland a chance
So how many more teams from each confederation is it then? ****ing farce. At this point, it's tougher for the big nations to not qualify for tournaments than to actually succeed.
Looking at the graphic it certainly looks that way. They might as well get rid of the qualifying tournaments altogether and just have every FIFA member in the finals. I remember when International tournaments were exciting and something to look forward to over a summer. That was a long long time ago now and it looks they are just going to get even duller.
Who on earth looked at the mind numbing dross on show during last years expanded euros and thought 'yeah we need more of this'
After countries have spent a long time qualifying going home in just two games is daft. In nearly every group it'll be easily predictable which country is going to be eliminated. FIFA ruining football again.
Utter bollocks, and dropping back to a 3 team group will inevitably lead to **** like this going on again where the last group games aren't played concurrently https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace_of_Gijón
Groups of 4 (12 groups leading to knockout with 32 teams) could have worked Groups of 6 (5 games leading to knockout with 16 teams ) could have worked Groups of 3? Nah
Even 40 teams - 8 groups of 5 with top 2 going through could work but would have odd number situation again Shame the obvious 32 team situation wasn't considered
Yeah the group of 3 is the stupidest bit. But as ever with FIFA I just don't get what they're trying to achieve. What is the aim? What's wrong with the current format? It always seems like they're determined to come up with changes to the game without a clear purpose.
Hopefully they won't just add more ****e from European nations. There's a lot of decent african, and south american sides which would add a lot more to the competition.