- Nov 2, 2004
- 1,585
- 1,927
Okay the draw has been made and as expected, FIFA held Ireland down while Blatter and Platini gang raped us. Spilt milk and all, we could have got them in an open draw anyway. Life goes on.
Blatter came out afterwards and admitted that the way it was handled was wrong and it should have been announced originally and that FIFA will learn lessons for future tournaments.
So basically, we are always going to have this completely biased system which is always going to favour this current crop of top teams, as the ranking system is geared towards rewarding teams in tournaments,ie. the scoring system is higher for games in the WC, Euro Champs and Confederations cup. In a few years New Zealand will be higher rated than teams like Ireland, Scotland, Bosnia, etc.
The old system gave each group in Europe two places. So why not go back to that? Obviously there is more countries, but why not have a preliminary qualification stage for the lower ranked teams in Europe. The likes of Faroe Islands, Georgia, Andorra, etc. At least these teams are playing against teams at their level and they get a reasonable chance of making the qualifiers proper.
Blatter came out afterwards and admitted that the way it was handled was wrong and it should have been announced originally and that FIFA will learn lessons for future tournaments.
So basically, we are always going to have this completely biased system which is always going to favour this current crop of top teams, as the ranking system is geared towards rewarding teams in tournaments,ie. the scoring system is higher for games in the WC, Euro Champs and Confederations cup. In a few years New Zealand will be higher rated than teams like Ireland, Scotland, Bosnia, etc.
The old system gave each group in Europe two places. So why not go back to that? Obviously there is more countries, but why not have a preliminary qualification stage for the lower ranked teams in Europe. The likes of Faroe Islands, Georgia, Andorra, etc. At least these teams are playing against teams at their level and they get a reasonable chance of making the qualifiers proper.