World Cup: Fifa president wants 48-team tournament

[tototoner]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37547545

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has proposed expanding the World Cup finals to 48 teams - after initially suggesting he wanted to boost it to 40.

According to the 46-year-old Italian, 16 countries would be eliminated after a preliminary knockout round.

The rest of the tournament would then be the same as it is now, with 32 teams competing in the group stages, followed by further knockout rounds.

Infantino said a decision on possible expansion would be taken in January.

"These are ideas to find the best solution," he said. "We will debate them this month and we will decide everything by 2017."

Infantino took charge of world football's governing body in February.

One of his election promises was to expand the World Cup to 40 teams.

But his idea now is that 32 teams take part in a preliminary knockout round in the host country, with the winners joining 16 seeded teams in the group stages.

"It means we continue with a normal World Cup for 32 teams, but 48 teams go to the party," said Infantino, who replaced Sepp Blatter.

"Fifa's idea is to develop football in the whole world. The World Cup is the biggest event there is. It's more than a competition, it's a social event."

 

[Dougal]

Bollocks to that. As a fan, if you qualify for a World Cup you wait for months and plan your life around minimum 3 games. You can't put your life/job/holidays on hold for a single game! It'd be like a Champions League play-off. Just get on with the competition.

 

[alfie103]

Seems to me they basically want a bigger competition so they have more games to sell to tv companies.

 

[tototoner]

Bollocks to that. As a fan, if you qualify for a World Cup you wait for months and plan your life around minimum 3 games. You can't put your life/job/holidays on hold for a single game! It'd be like a Champions League play-off. Just get on with the competition.

exactly, this idea just protects the big nations the way the CL seeding has always protected the big teams

 

[KingNothing]

My country, the Faroe Islands, might qualify then!



But seriously... Bad idea

 

[Lilbaz]

Seems to me they basically want a bigger competition so they have more games to sell to tv companies.

Think it's more knocking out smaller teams from other parts of the world. Knocking out the likes of iran etc... so holland qualify.

 

[hughy]

Bizarre idea really. As @Dougal says why go through 2 years of qualification to play in a tournament you're potentially only going to get one match in? What happens if a big team is eliminated in the preliminary round, or will the top 24 seeds be protected and assured a place in the "World Cup Proper"?

 

[Lilbaz]

Bizarre idea really. As @Dougal says why go through 2 years of qualification to play in a tournament you're potentially only going to get one match in? What happens if a big team is eliminated in the preliminary round, or will the top 24 seeds be protected and assured a place in the "World Cup Proper"?

The top seeds would be protected. They are going the way of cl trying to ensure the big teams go through.

 

[EQP]

Seems to me they basically want a bigger competition so they have more games to sell to tv companies.

"Fifa's idea is to develop football in the whole world. The World Cup is the biggest event there is. It's more than a competition, it's a social event."

How dare you suggest that Fifa wants more money? It is a social event! Infantino wants everyone to be friends

 

[Pellshek]

And so it begins

 

[aliyid]

Adds another weeks worth of games into a time period already stretched where players should be recuperating.

Sure if they had their way we'd be having 12 months of football every year. Who cares if performance levels drop to maintain 12 month fitness levels at least it's more tv revenue coming through the door.

On the plus side at least the proposed numbers fit a tournament structure rather than the Euro's where some 3rd place teams qualified and others didn't

 

[WorcesterTHFC]

My country, the Faroe Islands, might qualify then!



But seriously... Bad idea

The way things are going, it would be more difficult not to qualify for these tournaments.

 

[WorcesterTHFC]

Frankly, there isn't enough quality in a 32-team event, let alone 48 teams (which would be almost a quarter of all the nations on the planet). You can have either quality or quantity, but you can't have both. It's as simple as that. Yes, I know it's all about increasing the number of games in order to generate more TV and advertising money, but how many people will want to watch preliminary rounds featuring such mediocre teams? We saw how the increased number of teams worked in the 2016 Euros, and it didn't work, to be blunt.

 

[nightgoat]

Scotland are in favour. Of course they are. 48 teams would just be so bloated everyone would get bored before the group stages even finish.

 

[Kushal]

Should up it to 64, then even Scotland might qualify.

Seriously though, the World Cup already has too many teams in it.

 

[nailsy]

I was going to say that I'd be in favour of going straight to a knockout tournament, but that would probably mean every match would be some cagey, defensive affair with hardly any goals scored.

 

[Rocksuperstar]

I'd reduce it to 24, but make more of the qualifiers around the world. Qualifiers are boring, at least until the last couple of matches in each group assuming no teams have run away with it/blown it already, it's the same for domestic and international football. If there was slightly more at stake and if FIFA didn't price out the regular fans while over-saturating the stands with corporate hospitality seats, or perhaps didn't demand so much from the host countries and let them benefit more from the tournament after spending ludicrous amounts arranging it (christ, make them pay tax to the country that hosts at the very least - that makes me livid), we'd see better turnouts, more enthusiasm, more involvement and a generally all round better product.

 

[Lilbaz]

Frankly, there isn't enough quality in a 32-team event, let alone 48 teams (which would be almost a quarter of all the nations on the planet). You can have either quality or quantity, but you can't have both. It's as simple as that. Yes, I know it's all about increasing the number of games in order to generate more TV and advertising money, but how many people will want to watch preliminary rounds featuring such mediocre teams? We saw how the increased number of teams worked in the 2016 Euros, and it didn't work, to be blunt.

Mediocre teams like iceland?

 

[WorcesterTHFC]

Mediocre teams like iceland?

Point taken, but that was probably one of the exceptions that prove the rule. If we're going to be blunt, there's a fair amount of mediocrity outside the world's top 10-12 teams. I can't remember our current FIFA ranking, but I'd say we're mediocre.

 

[Syn_13]

"Fifa's idea is to develop football in the whole world. The World Cup is the biggest event there is. It's more than a competition, it's a social event."

How dare you suggest that Fifa wants more money? It is a social event! Infantino wants everyone to be friends

Soon we'll end up having to label it as "Sports Entertainment" like WWE does. To be fair, the way some of the players act they'd fit right in.