Mike White's just tweeted this, Platini wants a WC with 40 teams in it. They go from one daft decision to the next. The Uefa president, Michel Platini, wants to increase the number of teams competing in the World Cup finals from 32 to 40, starting in 2018. Platini, prompted by the Fifa president Sepp Blatter's desire to cut the number of European teams involved in the finals in favour of Africa and Asia, said his proposal would extend the tournament by only three days and would be "good for everybody". Platini told the Times: "I totally agree with Mr Blatter that we need more African and Asian [countries]. But instead of taking away some European, we have to go to 40 teams. We can add two African, two Asiatic, two American, one Oceania and one from Europe." Platini said the finals would grow to eight groups of five. "Football is changing … we have 209 associations, so why reduce? Make more people happy." Platini's proposal comes amid increased tension with Blatter before the next Fifa presidential election in 2015. Asked what the Fifa president made of the idea, Platini said: "I haven't told him yet."
Don’t see how, in the first instance, this would be regarded as such a bad idea. However, I do think the World Cup has become less exciting since the adoption of 32 countries over 24. But, I feel that this is down to, not just a change in football, but mainly the fact that only two countries qualify from the groups, as opposed to three going through in half of the groups previously. The group stage used to be my favourite part – free flowing football, shocks, teams taking risks etc. But now it’s too clinical, can be over after two matches and teams fear making one mistake that will lead them to being ****ed.
I can see qualifying for future WC's and European Championships being greatly changed. This, together with the recently hinted international leagues, might well see some countries not needing to qualify as such but their position in the 'international league' being the used as a qualifying vehicle instead. If it gets rid of fixtures such as England v San Marino, etc then it can only be positive.
It's actually in my view a very sensible point from Platini as it was in response to that stupid muthaf***a Blatter's view that Europe (who provide most of the quality and money) should lose places to accomodate more african and asian teams which is just mega dumb
There's already too many matches, and too many ****e teams at the World Cup. Matches with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Togo are hardly something to wet the appetite. Prefer the Euros to the WC as a competition- more chance of a big match happening.
Are the likes of Togo and Saudi (for example) that **** these days? There are many teams that qualify regularly that don't whet my appetite either so maybe some smaller African or Asian nations might I loved it when you had at least one or two proper **** teams at the World Cup who didn't have a clue - they all seem to be reasonably savvy these days - as qualification proves.
5-team groups would certainly be interesting. Especially considering on the final day two teams could go into it knowing if they get the right result both can go through, as not all teams will be playing...
Does it matter? It's called the World Cup Finals (note plural) and a process takes place to determine the new elite. Would it be better if just the 'elite' played? Maybe just send four teams?
I think you're right and if handled correctly, we might see better football (if qualification from the groups is wider than just two) than some of the cagey **** we've seen in recent years.
What they need to do is change the hosting so that only nations that have qualified for the World Cup at least 3 times can be eligible to host.
This gradual inflation in the number of teams at the world cup is all about the fact that a no hoper country has as big a vote in FIFA as England, Germany, Brazil, etc. In the end we'll have just the tournament and no qualifying at all.
Perhaps elite is the wrong term. The qualifiers determine the regions best nations, then they come together to battle it out. You'll always get weeker teams, which is fine, but I see no need to increase their numbers. Same way there should be pre-qualifiers for the likes of Andorra, San Marino, Gibraltar etc in Europe. Just my opinion.
Agreed. Surely a pre-qual round for those teams would actually assist their development. I think on the other point, some decent teams from Africa do fail to qualify (their qualification system is relatively quite difficult), so I don’t think it’d necessarily weaken the pot.
