OT: FIFA World Cup expanding to 48 teams, expansion worth $1billion

[cutchemist42]

http://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2017/01/10/fifa-world-cup-expansion-approved

I know its OT, but thought it might be interesting to discuss the newest change to the biggest tournament in the world for a day or two. Groups of 3 now with 32 team knockout stage. Even as a Canadian I dislike this.

I think a large paret of the rise of the soccer in the USA has been this flagpole event, and there were still rich countries not involved every 4 years; this now makes it easier to try to get them involved. I think FIFA knows you get countries into the sport by making them involved in this tourney at the biggest stage.

I dislike the change, but understand why its happening. This most likely ensures WC2026 will be the biggest sporting event ever.

Click to read more...

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

3 team groups? Nope nope nope.

 

[TheTotalPackage]

So the group stage consists of each country playing only two games? That seems chintzy.

 

[patnyrnyg]

So, the top-2 in each group move on to the knock-out? What will be the tie-breaker if everyone in the group goes 1-1? Or 0-0-2?

 

[Slot]

The money grab is real.

 

[xxxx]

Not sure why is this a bad idea considering there are too many good teams that don't get to participate now.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

So, the top-2 in each group move on to the knock-out? What will be the tie-breaker if everyone in the group goes 1-1? Or 0-0-2?

Saw something on Twitter where someone had the meeting agenda that said they would likely have penalties in the group stage. Probably no ties, 3 pts for a win and 1 pt for a SOW.

Whole thing is going to be a disaster. 3 team groups is going to lead to a lot of meaningless final games.

Heard they'll probably put CONCACAF and CONMEBOL qualifying together with 14 teams getting in. Going to be so easy, qualifying will lose all importance.

 

[golfortennis]

The money grab is real.

This is the truest post made. This whole discussion is about nothing else. Platitudes about "growing soccer", etc., make for nice sound bites, but this is about the money, first, last, and everywhere in between.

 

[cutchemist42]

Saw something on Twitter where someone had the meeting agenda that said they would likely have penalties in the group stage. Probably no ties, 3 pts for a win and 1 pt for a SOW.

Whole thing is going to be a disaster. 3 team groups is going to lead to a lot of meaningless final games.

Heard they'll probably put CONCACAF and CONMEBOL qualifying together with 14 teams getting in. Going to be so easy, qualifying will lose all importance.

From a purely competition setup perspective, I think this is brutal.

I think FIFA knows though that casuals from countries now included wont care if the setup is good. People will watch simply because they are in it now. I know my group of friends despite not liking soccer would instantly watch if Canada was in, and wouldnt care if the setup was good or we have zero chance. Just feels like a cheap way to get people watching.

Adding to thread another article about growing the sport; do you grow a sport by simply plopping a team into the world's biggest sporting event despite how much they dont belong there? We just came off a hockey World Cup where a lot of the HFboards community welcomed the video-game teams because adding lesser countries was not a good idea to them.

http://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2016...a-president-gianni-infantino-expansion-format

 

[ovikovy817]

What are they doing to my favorite sport?

EURO 2016 (with 24 teams), was the most terrible tourney that I have ever seen. (first one for me was the WC 1998 in France)

Come back to 16 teams @ EURO and 32 teams @ World Cup.

 

[ForumNamePending]

I think they should actually shrink it down to the dozen or so nations that have a somewhat realistic chance of winning the thing, and then add teams like a South American "young guns" and European "leftovers".

 

[theaub]

This is awful

32 teams was the correct number - now qualifying becomes meaningless.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

Awful, awful, awful.

32 was the perfect number for such a tournament. Large enough for the possibility of upsets, but small enough that it was extremely hard for a team that doesn't deserve to be there to get there.

Cash money.

Not sure why is this a bad idea considering there are too many good teams that don't get to participate now.

This isn't designed to fix that problem, it's designed to open the floodgates to double the amount of Asian and African teams that get in. 14 UEFA and likely 5 CONMEBOL teams will partake in the 32 team 2018 World Cup, compared to what seems likely to be 16 and 6 for the 48 yeam 2026 World Cup...that's only an addition of 3 teams from the two best confederations (by far).

But hey, at least New Zealand effectively gets an automatic bid every time now.

 

[TorstenFrings]

Not sure why is this a bad idea considering there are too many good teams that don't get to participate now.

The good teams that don't get to participate now, don't get to participate because they are in European and South American qualifying groups, while way way worse teams from NA or Oceania get in. The tournament does not need more teams, it needs better teams. This could be handled by teams from weaker continents having to play an additional wild card round against a European or SA team. But obviously there is money in the US and China, so this is what we get. Understandably even.

 

[cutchemist42]

The good teams that don't get to participate now, don't get to participate because they are in European and South American qualifying groups, while way way worse teams from NA or Oceania get in. The tournament does not need more teams, it needs better teams. This could be handled by teams from weaker continents having to play an additional wild card round against a European or SA team. But obviously there is money in the US and China, so this is what we get. Understandably even.

The thing is, its not even about the US as they are pretty much an auto-bid at this point. This is meant to bring in likely a few more well-off western civ. teams (Canada, New Zealand) and bring in newfound money/interest from Asia (China, Malaysia, and a India hopefully) without really bringing in much more quality.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

The good teams that don't get to participate now, don't get to participate because they are in European and South American qualifying groups, while way way worse teams from NA or Oceania get in. The tournament does not need more teams, it needs better teams. This could be handled by teams from weaker continents having to play an additional wild card round against a European or SA team. But obviously there is money in the US and China, so this is what we get. Understandably even.

The US hasn't missed a World Cup since 1986, this has nothing to do with wanting to practically guarantee the US a spot considering that was effectively achieved already.

China, on the other hand...

 

[Inkling]

How many countries are going to be able to afford to host such a large tournament?

 

[Big McLargehuge]

How many countries are going to be able to afford to host such a large tournament?

I think we're going to inevitably see it go down to a small pool of nations...which frankly is the way it should be considering how many hugely expensive stadiums hosting requires and how little use they get in many of these host nations after the World Cup. We'll also almost certainly see the return of multi-nation bids, for better or worse.

Probably safe to assume we don't see any 30+ year gaps between the US hosting again, though, considering the infrastructure is already in place to host multiple concurrent World Cups.

 

[Acesolid]

It's certainly a weird format.

Personally I think the ideal would be a 64 team single elimination or double elimination tournament. (Meaning, if you lose you go to the "loser's bracket") and the final is the winner of the winner's bracket VS the Winner of the loser's bracket.

I think three team groups instead of four team groups in particular is really weird and dumb (instead of groups of 4 with simultaneous final gamds in a group) Because it might (not might... WILL) cause collusion between teams in the final match.

Basically, expanding the World Cup is a great idea... but this proposed system isn't really.

 

[Flukeshot]

Hate it. Basically 25% of the World makes it. The 3 team "groups" are an even worse idea. I am sure a couple of upsets will happen and some will point to that as justification for expanding.

Why not just do a better job with qualifications

 

[Ernie]

I think the first stage of the tournament should be regional groupings that take place in the region the teams are from. Then followed up by a 16 team finals. IMO this would generate far more money and would be a much easier event to run.

 

[Mightygoose]

A flagrant money grab.

32 was an ideal number. Very easy to follow.

Looking forward to these groups of 3 and having non-bye team agreeing on results to get the each other through.

12 groups of 4 would better be better with the top 2 getting through and then the 8 best 3rd place teams.

 

[Inkling]

Three team groups increases the chances that teams will be tied on points and goal differential. I remember in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2000, all three teams in Canada's group had identical records and Canada advanced on the drawing of lots. It worked out for them when they won the whole thing, but not the way you want to decide things.

 

[theaub]

I think the first stage of the tournament should be regional groupings that take place in the region the teams are from.

Is this not what World Cup qualifying is?

That's the big issue with this. Qualifying, as it is right now, is rather fascinating. What's even the point of having qualifying in South America if 60% of the teams get in directly? How do you design a system to get 6.5 CONCACAF teams in when there's really only even 11 that have adequate infrastructure to host multiple matches (unless you want a ton of qualifiers on cricket pitches)?

In essence you ruin a pretty fun part of the World Cup process to just smash in a hell of a lot of teams that don't deserve to be there so everyone can go 'woah we made the World Cup!!11!!1!' as they get the everloving **** kicked out of them by teams that are actually good.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Saw something on Twitter where someone had the meeting agenda that said they would likely have penalties in the group stage. Probably no ties, 3 pts for a win and 1 pt for a SOW.

Whole thing is going to be a disaster. 3 team groups is going to lead to a lot of meaningless final games.

Heard they'll probably put CONCACAF and CONMEBOL qualifying together with 14 teams getting in. Going to be so easy, qualifying will lose all importance.

Only way it leads to meaningless games is if the first team to play twice, loses both games. Then, the last game doesn't matter.

For example you have a group consisting of US, Italy, Cameroon. First game, US beats Cameroon. Second game, Italy beats Cameroon. Now, Italy vs US is only for seeding.

But, if the opposite happens. Cameroon beats US, then Cameroon beats Italy, then the US-Italy game is huge.

I did see a side article that states to make sure every prelim game is meaningful, the winner of the first game of the group should play the 3rd team in the next game. This way, you won't have to worry about the first team playing twice, to lose both, thus making the last game meaningless.

I do think you will see more blowouts in the first round of the knockout stage.

Another article I read had a cool idea. Have your qualifiers in the years leading up to the tourney. Then, 64 (I think it was 64 teams) split into 16 groups of 4. However, they each have a home and home, similar to the qualifying. Run this over several months with the winner of each group advancing to the Host nation for a final 16. So, I think the example he used was Group A being France, US, Chile, and Morocco. US plays a home and home with France, Chile, and Morocco and so forth accumulating points. The idea is that something like would grow the game of soccer in the individual countries that need growing rather than the tournament as it is set up now. Gives each country the chance to see it's team play on it's soil in meaningful games. Yes, I know a lot of people will travel to see the World Cup, but MOST people are still staying home to watch on tv. This set up would give the chance for more Americans to see their team play in the World Cup, same for Frenchmen, Moroccan, and so forth.