European Championships set to be expanded to 24 in 2016

Denis Irwin

The European Championships look certain to be expanded from 16 to 24 teams after the proposal won universal support from UEFA's 53 member countries.
A final decision will be taken by UEFA's executive committee in September but there was no opposition to the plan when it was raised at a meeting of association presidents and general secretaries in Vienna on Saturday.
The change would come into force for Euro 2016 and was originally put forward by the Scottish FA last year. Their chief executive Gordon Smith said he was delighted by the response, telling PA Sport: "It's something UEFA have seen no real disadvantage to - it will only means a few extra days of the tournament and there is no down side in terms of loss of revenue."
UEFA president Michel Platini had earlier insisted that increasing the size of the tournament would not affect the quality of the competition.
He said: "Remember, I won the Euros [in 1984] when there were only eight teams. It is not certain it was better with eight teams than 16 or that 16 is better than 24 or 32 or 54.
"I am not worried about the quality by increasing the number of teams. Countries like England, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Serbia, Ukraine and Bulgaria all have the ability to participate in a European Championship."

http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hOxhsTNij6v4aCmBATXavrIfcqjg

leninbenjamin

yeah, this has been on the cards for a while now. i'd prefer for it not to be. 16 is the perfect number, it causes lot's of upsets and results in loads of high quality teams in the tournament. 24 will just dilute it; make it more the World Cup, carnival atmosphere at the cost of the quality of football.

Charlie

leninbenjamin wrote: »

yeah, this has been on the cards for a while now. i'd prefer for it not to be. 16 is the perfect number, it causes lot's of upsets and results in loads of high quality teams in the tournament. 24 will just dilute it; make it more the World Cup, carnival atmosphere at the cost of the quality of football.

Cnuts. These championships have been a perfect example of quality over quantity.

KnifeWRENCH

Might lead to a slight dip in quality.
But on the bright side, we might actually qualify now!

_blank_

square_igloo wrote: »

Might lead to a slight dip in quality.

square_igloo wrote: »

But on the bright side, we might actually qualify now!

The second thing will be a cause of the first.

SLIGHT?

It will become as shít as the World Cup imo.

Keep it at 16, greedy bastards.

Mr.Nice Guy

Brilliant idea in my opinion. 16 was too small a number I felt. Bring it on. Shame it's taking so long to be implemented though. Why not for 2012?

gimmick

Feck sake, why not do away with the qualifiers altogether and put them all in.

16 is perfect as it keeps out the dross like ourselves, Wales, Denmark, Norway etc etc etc. Sure it might give us a few nights out for the game and all, but at the cost of quality, an abundance of which we have seen in this tournament, makes it not worth it IMO.

Re why not 2012, they were saying on Setanta Sports News earlier that that was the plan? I don't know. One way or other, I am against it.

Thanx 4 The Fish

Not a fan of it either. Nobody has missed the teams that have not qualified, the football has been of a decent level, even if not every game has been a wide open game of end to end footy, each game has had something to reccomend it.

Nowt that whinging about it can do though, just ,means that next time we don't qualify we will be an even worse team, not getting into a 16 nation comp was poor, not getting into a 24 nation comp would be even worse.

D.S.

It will effectively ruin the group stages, making them v predictable. The real tournament won't start until the knock out stages. It's a shame. This has been the best tournament I have seen in a long time - it's a testament to the fact that 16 teams was the perfect amount...

SantryRed

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Brilliant idea in my opinion. 16 was too small a number I felt. Bring it on. Shame it's taking so long to be implemented though. Why not for 2012?

Name another eight teams that are worthy enough to compete in this years tournament so if it's such a good idea.

Absolute bollocks is this.

Mr.Nice Guy

SantryRed wrote: »

Name another eight teams that are worthy enough to compete in this years tournament so if it's such a good idea.

Absolute bollocks is this.

Greater competition would do the tournament the world of good. Anyone who thinks the likes of England, Bulgaria, Scotland and ourselves will somehow damage the tournament is off their rocker.

tdv

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Greater competition would do the tournament the world of good. Anyone who thinks the likes of England, Bulgaria, Scotland and ourselves will somehow damage the tournament is off their rocker.

Well I think that these teams would damage the tournament in the sense that they'd bore the arse of everyone & put us all to sleep.

leninbenjamin

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Greater competition would do the tournament the world of good. Anyone who thinks the likes of England, Bulgaria, Scotland and ourselves will somehow damage the tournament is off their rocker.

more boring direct unimaginative long ball teams? no thanks.

(note; i know nothing about how Bulgaria play so i'm talking excelusively about the other three)

estebancambias

Here I'm sorry but would you care if your club team was playing **** but qualifying for major tournaments.

The responses have been typical boards nonsense. Platini said himself that countries like us would not damage the quality. Can someone tell me how attacking players like Damien Duff, Aiden McGeady and Robbie Keane could damage the quality?

Ireland was nominated for most entertaining team in WC 2002 with a team with less flair than the current team. Don't anyone dare tell me that Andy Reid is not a far more clever and technical player than Matt Holland or Kinsella.

I don't care what you think of McGeady, but to say he is not an exciting talent is wrong.

And for idiots who disagree with this, imagine Russia didn't qualify for 2010(England didn't slip us, we would have never seen their attacking footall)

*We would have qualifed for every tournament bar 2004(most likely) if there was 24 teams.*


I can understand the claims about diluting the competition but its not like San Marino will be qualifying.

Also I happen to like more matches on tv. If you don't want to watch matches then don't watch them.

Mr.Nice Guy

leninbenjamin wrote: »

more boring direct unimaginative long ball teams? no thanks.

(note; i know nothing about how Bulgaria play so i'm talking excelusively about the other three)

What boring, direct, unimaginative play as embodied by the Germans tonight you mean? Or the Italians? Or the French? How about Romania? Austria?

estebancambias wrote:

The responses have been typical boards nonsense. Platini said himself that countries like us would not damage the quality. Can someone tell me how attacking players like Damien Duff, Aiden McGeady and Robbie Keane could damage the quality?

I know any old sh*t to stick the boot in.

NI were very close to denying Sweden qualification (and beat Spain in Belfast 3-2 and had the leading goalscorer in Healy). The Scots were very close to denying either France or Italy qualification and actually managed to beat France in Paris. Russia meanwhile, who lit up Euro 2008, were close to missing out at the hands of England.

So the way I see it, the inclusion of all of the above teams would have made for an even more enjoyable spectacle. I'm so sick of this 'the glass is half empty' bullsh*t and how more teams must equate to less quality.

Typical moaning Irish begrudgery.

gixerfixer

Rubbish idea.It's all about the dollars :mad:

estebancambias

Football is all about the dollars.

Man Utd don't exist for the laugh or the fans.

tdv

estebancambias wrote: »

Football is all about the dollars.

Man Utd don't exist for the laugh or the fans.

But it wasnt always like that. And the way things are going it wont ever be about just the football again.

shane86

tbh the only team I can think of that deserved to be there and would have played more entertaining football than their group leaders are the Scots (you could argue that the Czech Rep played as good-bad as we would have. Thinking from a neutrals point of view though we no more deserved to be there in terms of entertaining play).

Dilutes the possibilities for groups of death for a start. Fair enough it will get us in there but tbh it takes away some of the excitement. Its better seeing your team break through to a group of 16 then see them through to a group of 24 despite having played god awful football.

Also probably means an afternoon game needed when alot of fans will be working.

tdv wrote: »

But it wasnt always like that. And the way things are going it wont ever be about just the football again.

In fairness its been going like that for 20 plus years. The time for a grab back went a while ago.

SantryRed

If teams are good enough they'll qualify, don't see why you should expand a tournament to let in teams who couldn't qualify normally.

How will the system work as well? Top 6 teams through and then the two best second placed teams? Or the top 2 in each group plus 4 best runners up?

It's a joke.

KnifeWRENCH

DesF wrote: »

The second thing will be a cause of the first.

If I was a neutral, I'd rather it be kept at 16 to maintain the overall quality of the tournament.

But feckit, I'm Irish and I wanna see us qualify! Quality be damned if it means we get there. If Greece can win it, we can too!

evad_lhorg

Im not a fan of the idea but as was said already, we might get into it

Mr.Nice Guy

SantryRed wrote: »

If teams are good enough they'll qualify, don't see why you should expand a tournament to let in teams who couldn't qualify normally.

You could argue that point for an 8 team tournament. 'If they're good enough they'll qualify for it'.

The point is good teams who could hold their own in the tournament are denied the opportunity to compete because 16 teams is too limiting a number (especially when hosts these days tend to be co-hosts who take up two slots)

CHD

My God will yous cop on!!

This is a good thing!

FFS how stupid is all this moaning

leninbenjamin

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

What boring, direct, unimaginative play as embodied by the Germans tonight you mean? Or the Italians? Or the French? How about Romania? Austria?

exactly. did you watch the games with them in it? not exactly inspiring stuff at times.

what you'll see as more smaller teams are added will be numerous attempts to recreate Greece. or like Austria, park 11 men behind the ball and play for the draw. it'll also take from the qualifiers it'll be less of a challenge to qualify and make it even more meaningless for the big teams in particular.

Mr.Nice Guy

leninbenjamin wrote: »

exactly. did you watch the games with them in it? not exactly inspiring stuff at times.

what you'll see as more smaller teams are added will be numerous attempts to recreate Greece. or like Austria, park 11 men behind the ball and play for the draw. it'll also take from the qualifiers it'll be less of a challenge to qualify and make it even more meaningless for the big teams in particular.

Russia arguably played the best football of the tournament, and were within a whisker of being prevented from qualifying by England, so I don't agree that teams who wouldn't normally qualify would bring down the quality. Turkey were another team who aren't normally regarded as dead certs to make the competition but who brought a lot to it. Germany and Italy it could also be said tried to recreate the Greek style and they're always involved.

I would say the likes of Wayne Rooney, Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov would add to the tournament and - as Russia and Spain have shown - a team can step up in quality in the major tournaments in ways they might not have done during qualification.

Xavi6

chdpoker wrote: »

My God will yous cop on!!

This is a good thing!

FFS how stupid is all this moaning

Care to elaborate as to why it's good?

The tournament should be Europe's elite teams, not almost half of UEFA's member countries. (AFAIK there are 53 members).

I most certainly do not look forward to having 8 or 9 'Greeces' in the tournament.

estebancambias

Xavi6 wrote: »

Care to elaborate as to why it's good?

The tournament should be Europe's elite teams, not almost half of UEFA's member countries. (AFAIK there are 53 members).

I most certainly do not look forward to having 8 or 9 'Greeces' in the tournament.

Its good thing for Irish football Xavi. Surely thats obvious. We(presuming we keep on producing the same standard of player) would be pretty much on to qualify for the European Cup 80% of the time.

~Rebel~

estebancambias wrote: »

Its good thing for Irish football Xavi. Surely thats obvious. We(presuming we keep on producing the same standard of player) would be pretty much on to qualify for the European Cup 80% of the time.

good for Ireland, bad for the tournament imo.

Group stages will become a bit meaningless with all the top teams seperated out so no more proper 'group of death' like this year with holland italy france and romania. We'll be relying on 'upsets' rather then teams of equal stature beating each other before the knockouts.

kinaldo

Quality beats quantity. I'd rather see really good football amongst fewer teams rather than an expanded version of what we have now. We can have our Celtic Cup, the Scandinavians can have theirs, etc etc. The European Cup is the holy grail of European football, and thus should be difficult to qualify for.

Xavi6

estebancambias wrote: »

Its good thing for Irish football Xavi. Surely thats obvious. We(presuming we keep on producing the same standard of player) would be pretty much on to qualify for the European Cup 80% of the time.

It's not good for Irish football.

Now we can rely on mediocrity to get us into a tournament rather than pushing ourselves to be up there amongst the elite.

estebancambias

Can you think of the revenue of qualifying for these tournaments that could go towards grassroots?

Good alternate view though.

Xavi6

The FAI have enough resources there from ticket sales to meaningless friendlies at home without having to rely on that gotten from big tournaments. Sure we never play friendlies away for feck sake.

tolosenc

Would it be 8 groups of three, with the top 2 going into a round of 16 knock-out -> as it is now at the quarters, or what?

Bad for Irish football - good for supporters though.

_blank_

That rendering into Irish of the word Lisbon is pitiful.

gimmick

The world cup has 32 teams involved. Thats abround a decent number. Europe - one continent should have 24? That does not make sense.

To look at it from another point of view - the Champions League really only gets exciting at the last 16 stage, as the group stages for the vast majority of the time, are predictable as to whom will progress. 24 teams in the Euro Championships will cause the same thing, which, to me, is 100% a bad thing.

Xavi6 wrote:

It's not good for Irish football.

Now we can rely on mediocrity to get us into a tournament rather than pushing ourselves to be up there amongst the elite.

Nail on the head.

therecklessone

Belguim
Hungary
Bulgaria
Ukraine
Ireland
Scotland
Norway
Serbia
Slovenia
Wales
Denmark

Most likely to have benefit from this? On form, only Bulgaria, Ukraine and Serbia would have brought anything to the tournament IMO.

Terrible move.

Benedict XVI

SantryRed wrote: »

If teams are good enough they'll qualify, don't see why you should expand a tournament to let in teams who couldn't qualify normally.

How will the system work as well? Top 6 teams through and then the two best second placed teams? Or the top 2 in each group plus 4 best runners up?

It's a joke.

Yea it's a joke, it will probably be like the WC was when it was 24 teams (1982 - 1994).

Top two in each group (12) plus top 4 third placed teams go into last 16.

So only two 3rd placed teams will go home after first round.

Eire qualified for the 2nd round in 1990 with three draws, I know it was great fun at the time but it was medrocity at a huge level.

estebancambias

therecklessone wrote: »

Belguim
Hungary
Bulgaria
Ukraine
Ireland
Scotland
Norway
Serbia
Slovenia
Wales
Denmark

Most likely to have benefit from this? On form, only Bulgaria, Ukraine and Serbia would have brought anything to the tournament IMO.

Terrible move.

Thats hilarious. I follow Ukraine games very closely and we(they) are ****.

TBH Ukraine was not so good in world cup. They got lucky with the group and then got the Swiss in the last 16.

Johnny Utah

This is a ridiculous idea- it will destroy the competition.
16 teams was the perfect number in terms of quality.


I wonder could we get a petition going to make Uefa change their mind.

eZe^

estebancambias wrote: »

Thats hilarious. I follow Ukraine games very closely and we(they) are ****.

TBH Ukraine was not so good in world cup. They got lucky with the group and then got the Swiss in the last 16.

And it was 0-0 until penalties, and then only like one or two penalties were scored if I remember correctly... Jesus, watching that game was as fun as having syphilis...