Just read this on the BBC... http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24701131 Is it just a ploy for a bigger, more money generating competetion, or a genuine attempt at drawing new countries and fans into the game? Does this make it even less likely England will win it? Or, will it dullify the World Cup as too many sub standard teams will be able to play. My fear is that it will end up being mostly poor teams, with the odd fantastic clash in there between two big footballing countries. Thoughts?
It will end up like the Europa league, full of clashes no one cares about. Even now, the WC only gets interesting in the knock out stages, same goes for euro comps but they want big leagues so they can milk the cash cow, plus big teams are less likely to get knocked out. It wouldnt surprise me if his idea was to have a group stage followed by another group stage.
32 is eight too many. We'll have the same long qualifying campaign followed by a tournament a week longer all while players and coaches complain about the number of games. Quality will suffer as a result.
His idea is to have 8 groups of 5 rather than 8 groups of 4, knock out stages stay the same. I extra group game each, in effect. Long winded way of giving the Scots a chance and ensuring France aren't in the play offs for a final place.
I agree. It would be just like the cricket World Cup, with meaningless games until the top 8 countries play in the 1/4 finals.
The whole way FIFA and UEFA run the World Cup and European Championship is arse about face. We currently have every Mickey Mouse country involved in one qualifying tournament for each competition which includes such notables as Andorra, San Marino and the Faroes. Gibraltar are just about to be accepted so the qualifiers will now be even more long-winded. The top 32 European sides should be automatically seeded into the qualifiers and the remainder should have a qualifying tournament to make up a total of 40 making eight groups of five teams and these would be far more competitive than some of the dross that currently makes up qualifiers. Instead the governing bodies are trying to make qualifying even more ridiculous and, once they've got their qualifiers the actual tournaments are going to be even more long-winded. It is getting beyond a joke and they run the risk of killing the golden goose if they keep on putting the 'have-nots' before the 'haves'. The big clubs are tiring of all this interference and will eventually break away and form their own Super League and it will kill international football in one fell swoop. The Super League will be owned by the clubs for the clubs and their players won't be released for internationals any more. The money the big clubs generate and pay the players will ensure this, it will be the best players in the world exclusively owned lock, stock and barrel. This is already in the planning stage and will be in place by the end of this decade...
Blatter wants to cut the European teams in it and give those places to other continents who are crap at football. Platini does not want the European allocation cut and thinks he can avoid this by adding more teams to the competition I actually like Platini but Blatter is a ****
They are both pricks. Blatter wants the **** teams in as they are the ones who are involved in all the bribes. They probably want their teams in the WC in exchange for voting for him. The top level positions are daft, it should be about 60% european, 30% SA and 10% for the rest. As it is now, more than half the board are made up with people from the likes or Belize, the Maldives, Trinidad etc because the whole process is so bent. Its like having Africa and Asia control ice hockey or N and S america control cricket.
