Uefa president Michael Platini calls for 40-team World Cup

Lapin

Link

Irish Times - Uefa president Michel Platini has called for the World Cup to be expanded from 32 to 40 teams.

The Frenchman, who is expected by some to rival Sepp Blatter for the Fifa presidency in 2015, believes an increase in teams would only add an extra three days to the tournament’s running time and would ensure better representation for non-European confederations.

Blatter recently spoke about Africa’s under-representation at the showpiece, but rather than take places away from Europe, which sends 13 teams, Platini believes expansion is the way to go.

“It’s good for everybody,” Platini said. “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 in the World Cup.

“We can add two African, two Asiatic, two American and one from Europe. I support this idea totally.”

Platini believes the growth of Fifa in recent decades justifies a bigger World Cup.
“Football is changing and now we have 209 associations,” he said. “There are more countries so why reduce? Forty is not so bad.

“You have three days more of competition and you make more people happy.”


I was initially dismissive of this idea and regarded it as a campaign stunt by Platini, (which is essentially what it is).

But I'm slowly warming to it. There is an argument that the tournament should be more representetive of the larger populations on other continents.

Reducing the number of qualifiers from Europe is not the answer. Apart from being potentially disasterous for Ireland, most of the TV audiences for the tournament (with disposable incomes) are European. So maintaining the current number of European teams is more lucrative to advertisers and sponsors and ultimately FIFA themselves.

With 209 football associations a 40 team finals would mean just under 1 in 5 qualify. I think this is a reasonably fair number and wouldn't dilute the quality of the qualifier rounds or the finals themselves.

While The European Championships have a higher concentration of better quality teams, The World Cup as a global competition will always attract greater interest worldwide and an extra 8 teams can only add to that.

The best teams will continue to rise to the top and the rest of us can look forward to more matches and an extra 3 days on our armchairs with a cold beer every 4 years !


What do ye think ?

Soby

Didn't give us a extra spot when we wanted it :P

Corholio

Bigger wallchart......I'm all for it.

RayCon

Panini are said to be very happy with the idea

Mr.Crinklewood

Delaney will want us to be the 41st team.

dsmythy

Can't say I'm against the idea.

The_Kew_Tour

Top 2 teams in Europe should be able to qualify automatically.

Having more crap teams from Asia is not what I want to see

Agueroooo

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Top 2 teams in Europe should be able to qualify.

No way!

Everyone should start off on a level playing field.
Im not actually against the idea of 40 teams and think it might be a good thing.

The_Kew_Tour

Agueroooo wrote: »

No way!

Everyone should start off on a level playing field.
Im not actually against the idea of 40 teams and think it might be a good thing.

What level playing field?

Agueroooo

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

What level playing field?

Everyone starts at 0 points.

PirateShampoo

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Having more crap teams from Asia is not what I want to see

Remember Euro 2004?

Just because a team is crap doesn't mean they can't entertain.

The_Kew_Tour

Agueroooo wrote: »

Everyone starts at 0 points.

No idea what you're on about.

From France, Ukraine, Sweden, Portugal, Romania, Greece, Croatia and Iceland 4 will miss out.

Give me these teams over more rubbish from Asia.

ronjo

Agueroooo wrote: »

Everyone starts at 0 points.

I think The Kew Tour means the top two teams in each group should qualify.

Agueroooo

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

No idea what you're on about.

From France, Ukraine, Sweden, Portugal, Romania, Greece, Croatia and Iceland 4 will miss out.

Give me these teams over more rubbish from Asia.

Oh it sounded like you saying the top two seeds

The_Kew_Tour

Agueroooo wrote: »

Oh it sounded like you saying the top two seeds

Ya me bad can see why now.

I really should proof read more :-)

Agueroooo

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Ya me bad can see why now.

I really should proof read more :-)

No worries mate. Its Tue after a long weekend.

im goosed dont know about you

The_Kew_Tour

Agueroooo wrote: »

No worries mate. Its Tue after a long weekend.

im goosed dont know about you

haha. Ya working at 11 here. Not looking forward to it.

Weekend flew by. Im still wrecked and did not even go out

keeponhurling

It would only dilute the quality, more poor teams.
People would probably get interested only at the later stages.

It's already a month long, presumably this would mean it's extended by a week.

And, it reduces the intensity of the qualifying series. Any chance of big guns not qualifying would be almost completely removed.

Omackeral

What way would the brackets work? 32 is nicely divisible into groups of four with 2 progressing from each pool into the knockouts.

eagle eye

Omackeral wrote: »

What way would the brackets work? 32 is nicely divisible into groups of four with 2 progressing from each pool into the knockouts.

8 groups of five? One extra match for every team at the World Cup finals. I don't see any problem with it.

iDave

I know FIFA have gone cold on the idea of co-hosting but with 8 extra teams would that make the list of countries that can host it on their own a bit smaller?

ArmaniJeanss

Its not an appealing idea, but its the only way UEFA is going to keep its current allocation of 13 (even increase it to 14).

If it stays at 32 then Europe is going to have its allocation cut to 12 or 11, as the African bloc vote has been putting huge pressure to have what they consider a fairer allocation (personally I think they barely justify their current five places). And it seems that the FIFA exec committee is coming around to the idea of giving CAF and AFC (Asia) an extra place each at UEFA expense, going by the utterances of Blatter and Jordaan over the last week.

Any reduction for UEFA primarily affects the qualification chances of those UEFA countries ranked between 10 and 25 just outside the top tier, specifically like Ireland.
Platini is a %6&*$£, but in this case he is actually doing something useful from our point of view.

Red Crow

Platini is as useless as Blatter. Both should not be near running world football.

Pepe LeFrits

Mixed feelings. I do enjoy the sense of adventure that African teams often bring to the World Cup though.

iDave

Is there a coefficient system in place for the continents similar to the coefficient for the leagues?
If not there should be, so then the amount of places that goes to the federation can be merit based. In the Champions League the leagues that perform the best and most consistently get the most automatic places. Think it should work for the World Cup too. If Europe performs the best at World Cups then their number of places should be protected until another continent overtakes it. Feel free to tear my theory apart I just thought of it on the spot

keeponhurling

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Mixed feelings. I do enjoy the sense of adventure that African teams often bring to the World Cup though.

Yes, but having the top 5 African teams is enough?

I'm not sure that the 6th best and 7th best African teams would bring a lot to it.

Only if 5 African teams are all competitive, then we should consider the 6th best as well.

Lapin

Soby wrote: »

Didn't give us a extra spot when we wanted it :P

That wasn't Platini.

Anyway, they were right not to. That was just embarrrasing.

mikeym

What annoys me is that the likes of USA and Mexico will always have an easy passage in the qualification.

North and South America should be combined into one region.

EdenHazard

mikeym wrote: »

What annoys me is that the likes of USA and Mexico will always have an easy passage in the qualification.

North and South America should be combined into one region.

Mexico only qualified for the world cup because USA beat Guatemala.

Corholio

I'd be for it as long as its fair. I dont like the idea of just wanting the 'big' teams and none of this not diluting the quality rubbish. So called big teams like France, England, Portugal, Russia, Italy have been pretty rubbish in different tournaments over the past decade, as bad as many of the smaller countries or some cases worse.

Every part of the world should have a decent and fair chance to qualify. International football has still at least a semblance of the spirit of football that a lot of club football has lost. Last thing it needs is a Champions League style big team favouritism.

Jarrod

There was 6 African teams at the last WC. 3 finished bottom of their group and 1 qualified for the knockout rounds. And that WC was hosted in Africa. Of the 4 semi finalists at the AFCON 2010, the winners (Egypt) didn't qualify for the WC, Ghana made the quarters (fair play) but the other two, Nigeria and Algeria both finished bottom of their WC groups.

I don't see any argument for increasing the size of the WC. It's by far my favourite tournament to watch but even with 32 teams, there are enough dire matches. I have no interest in watching Jordan take on North Korea in the fifth match of their group.

Lapin

Jarrod wrote: »

I have no interest in watching Jordan take on North Korea in the fifth match of their group.

Don't watch it then.

Jarrod

Lapin wrote: »

Don't watch it then.

I won't. Just like I didn't watch Switzerland v. Honduras or Slovenia v. Algeria at the last WC. Adding more teams will do nothing to improve the competition, IMO.

If you take this years qualifying as an example. The extra teams from Asia would be Jordan and Uzbekistan. I think there's more of an argument to be made for giving Europe an extra 8 places than there is for what Platini's proposing.

764dak

mikeym wrote: »

What annoys me is that the likes of USA and Mexico will always have an easy passage in the qualification.

North and South America should be combined into one region.

What are you talking about? The Mexican team was minutes away from not qualifying and still have to play off against New Zealand.

iDave wrote: »

Is there a coefficient system in place for the continents similar to the coefficient for the leagues?

There is a Conferedation coefficient for the world rankings but all it does is overrate and underrate teams from certain continents. For example, Japan and Wales are both ranked 44th in the world. If both teams win in a friendly against Ireland (60), Wales would gain more points than Japan because of the Confederation coefficients. This is one of the reasons why European and South American teams dominate rankings.

Jarrod wrote: »

There was 6 African teams at the last WC. 3 finished bottom of their group and 1 qualified for the knockout rounds. And that WC was hosted in Africa. Of the 4 semi finalists at the AFCON 2010, the winners (Egypt) didn't qualify for the WC, Ghana made the quarters (fair play) but the other two, Nigeria and Algeria both finished bottom of their WC groups.

Africa's qualification system is silly so some of the better teams don't even make it to the World Cup. This happens in Asia as well.

Jarrod wrote: »

I have no interest in watching Jordan take on North Korea in the fifth match of their group.

This wouldn't happen anyway. Only Europe can have more than one team in a World Cup group because the number of teams from Europe is more than the number of groups.

764dak

Food for thought: The teams and athletes in the Olympics aren't the best in the world.

Jarrod

764dak wrote: »

Food for thought: The teams and athletes in the Olympics aren't the best in the world.

And how many football fans care about or watch the Olympics football tournament?

764dak

Jarrod wrote: »

And how many football fans care about or watch the Olympics football tournament?

I wasn't talking about the Olympic football tournament. I was talking about the entire Olympics. Also, many football fans in South America care about the Olympics.

Jarrod

764dak wrote: »

I wasn't talking about the Olympic football tournament. I was talking about the entire Olympics. Also, many football fans in South America care about the Olympics.

Oh, apologies, I thought you meant football. Well I think the Olympics main draw is track and field and those events certainly attract the best athletes. Swimming and cycling have the world's best too. You could make the argument about boxing but that's amateur in the Olympics and therefore not really comparable to the World Cup, so I'm not sure what the point you're making is.

As for the original discussion, I don't think the proposed expansion would in any way enhance the overall quality of the World Cup. That said, I'm sure that if FIFA think an expanded WC will generate more money then I'm sure that's what they'll do.

keith16

This could all be just political posturing from Platini.

"Yeah, hello, president of CAF? Yes, this is Michel Platini here. I will give the CAF more places at World Cup IF you vote me president of the World. I mean FIFA.

764dak

Jarrod wrote: »

Oh, apologies, I thought you meant football. Well I think the Olympics main draw is track and field and those events certainly attract the best athletes. Swimming and cycling have the world's best too. You could make the argument about boxing but that's amateur in the Olympics and therefore not really comparable to the World Cup, so I'm not sure what the point you're making is.

If you look at the qualification of the different individual sports you would see the best athletes aren't there. For example, in track sprinting events a country can enter up to 3 in an event and even in the 100m final you could argue that that 1 or 2 of the sprinters in it shouldn't be there. If you look at the prelims and heat, there are plenty of better athletes in the world. Male singles in table tennis only allows 2 players from a country. China alone has the top 4 players in the world and 7 of the top 10 while some random guys from the UK and Belgium get to play in the Olympics instead. The same thing goes for swimming events.

The same thing goes for team sports in the Olympics and the World Cup. The best 32 teams aren't in the World Cup.

Jarrod wrote: »

As for the original discussion, I don't think the proposed expansion would in any way enhance the overall quality of the World Cup. That said, I'm sure that if FIFA think an expanded WC will generate more money then I'm sure that's what they'll do.

I agree with you. I like 32 teams in a World Cup.

LETS BE AVN IT

What about a second tier World Cup Competition it would give more places to the lesser confederations and countries like Ireland , Slovakia etc a outside chance of going far in a global tournament I'm sure the Irish fans would still travel in decent numbers.

titan18

keith16 wrote: »

This could all be just political posturing from Platini.

"Yeah, hello, president of CAF? Yes, this is Michel Platini here. I will give the CAF more places at World Cup IF you vote me president of the World. I mean FIFA.

Tbh, it's more about saving the European places at it rather than anyone else. As it is, Africa and Asia are going to get more places, just at the expense of European and South American. I'd rather a 40 team WC rather than a WC with less good teams.

Lapin

LETS BE AVN IT wrote: »

What about a second tier World Cup Competition it would give more places to the lesser confederations and countries like Ireland , Slovakia etc a outside chance of going far in a global tournament I'm sure the Irish fans would still travel in decent numbers.

How would this work?
When would it take place?
How would teams in the lower tier progress from it?


I'm not knocking the idea.
I just don't think it would generate anywhere the same interest as other tournaments.

GLaDOS

Wouldn't bother me, love watching games of all sorts when the WC rolls around.

LETS BE AVN IT

Lapin wrote: »

How would this work?
When would it take place?
How would teams in the lower tier progress from it?


I'm not knocking the idea.
I just don't think it would generate anywhere the same interest as other tournaments.

I don't think it would have the same amount as interest as the WC except from the countries taking part. It would take place same time as WC but it would be held in a different time zone example WC14 Brazil and second tier WC14 UAE that way it won't effect TV coverage. I would limit it to 24 teams with 8 European , 5 African , 4 South American , 3 Conacaf , 3 Asian , 1 Oceania. I'm not sure if it would take off tbh but with the global appeal of soccer constantly growing it might be worth a shot? Teams that never played in a WC tournament would gain expierance from it it might be looked upon by fans similar to the Europa League.

Sunglasses Ron

LETS BE AVN IT wrote: »

What about a second tier World Cup Competition it would give more places to the lesser confederations and countries like Ireland , Slovakia etc a outside chance of going far in a global tournament I'm sure the Irish fans would still travel in decent numbers.

Like a Europa league?

Nah, I don't know, there just isn't as much magic associated with a concession tournament of average teams. Even fans of the Confed Cup participants find it hard to truly get excited about it. And our own home nations tournament didn't set the excitement level alight (though if England took part people may have cared more)

doncarlos

LETS BE AVN IT wrote: »

What about a second tier World Cup Competition it would give more places to the lesser confederations and countries like Ireland , Slovakia etc a outside chance of going far in a global tournament I'm sure the Irish fans would still travel in decent numbers.

I like the idea of this. Would also give the smaller nations a chance of hosting an international competition.