DC Soccer Opinions: The World Cup: From 32 to 28 for 2010?
- By Joseph Schoenbauer
France 1998 was the first World Cup in which 32 nations competed. Before, at USA 1994, a total of 24 teams competed. At the time, expansion seemed the rational thing to do. All signs pointed towards more and more national team programs around the world taking the necessary strides to improve on the field to produce competitive teams while FIFA was attracting more and more sponsors, which meant more and more revenue. However, following the 2002 World Cup and now the 2006 World Cup, it is clear that there are too many teams qualifying for the World Cup that are simply making up the numbers, rather than actually adding value to the competition.
With club futbol fast overtaking national team futbol in becoming the greatest spectacle on the planet, both in terms of on-field product and revenue generating, FIFA must work quickly to restructure the World Cup in order to ensure a greater level of play and product on the field by 2010. While ensuring more time between the end of the club season and the beginning of the World Cup for better team preparation and proper facilities in South Africa will be vital, the most important way to improve the quality is to cut the amount of teams that qualify for the World Cup from 32 to 28 teams.
Certainly this will be a change in direction for FIFA, because over the past two World Cups the different federations have been clamoring for more and more allocations. Asia was adamant to add to their numbers after Japan, and especially South Korea’s performances on home turf in 2002. Africa, as well, were bellowing for a 6th spot so that five nations could qualify to join hosts South Africa. Not to be left out, both South America and North America’s governing bodies were quick to jump on board, claiming they too deserved more spots.
World Cup 2006 came and went, and every single regional governing body must have been scratching their head wondering how they were going to justify earning further allocations for 2010.
Of the 5 Africa teams, only Ghana advanced to the second round. One must feel for Cote D’Ivoire, who arguably would have advanced out of any other group, but seeing the likes of Togo, Tunisia and Angola struggle for goals and points does not give Africa any claim that they deserve more spots for 2010.
In Asia, no teams even advanced to the second round. Iran was very disappointing, and Saudi Arabia has not shown any signs of improvement since successfully qualifying for the first time in 1994 and every World Cup thereafter. Japan was comprehensively beaten by an off-form Brazil before exiting, while South Korea succumbed at the last hurdle to a typically boring Switzerland side.
In North America, Costa Rica and Trinidad & Tobago never looked like advancing, while USA’s performances against Czech Republic and Ghana were downright pitiful. Mexico was lucky to get out of a group that consisted of two of the weakest teams in the tournament in Iran and Angola, before losing out to Argentina in the second round.
Europe and South America are the only regions of the world that can somewhat hold their heads up high. Portugal, Germany, France, and Italy made up the four semifinalists, while 10 of the 14 advanced past the group stages. In South America, Ecuador, Argentina, and Brazil all advanced to the second round, with Argentina and Brazil losing out one round further in the quarterfinals. Ecuador proved to be one of the great surprises of the World Cup, while Argentina produced the best match, against the shameful Serbia & Montenegro.
However, in Europe, Serbia & Montenegro proved to be the worst team in the entire tournament, losing to Holland, Cote D’Ivoire and 6-0 to Argentina, while the second round match up between European countries Ukraine and Switzerland proved to be the worst and least entertaining of the World Cup. For South America, Brazil was the most disappointing team of the tournament, despite reaching the quarterfinals, and Paraguay was eliminated after only 2 games.
All of these are examples as to why the World Cup has become diluted with teams that not only cannot realistically compete for the crown, but also cannot realistically field a team worthy of such a competition.
With a drop down to 28 teams from 32, the World Cup cannot ensure that there will no longer be disappointments. But it can ensure that the disappointments will be due to playing against greater competition, rather than seriously underperforming.
The prevailing attitude in today’s modern futbol is not like it used to be. Even 8 years ago, people were saying: “Please don’t make us wait four more years for another World Cup.” The attitude now to many fans screams: “Oh well, the club season is just around the corner.” With a more competitive version of the World Cup, where every game is of the highest quality, FIFA can reaffirm to the world that the World Cup is and always will be the greatest spectacle in the world of sport.
Optimal Scenario
Currently Europe gets 14 allocations, Africa 5, Asia 4 ˝, South America 4 ˝, North America 3 ˝, and Oceania ˝.
To move from 32 to 28 teams, FIFA should seek for each region to have the following allocations for 2010 qualifying: Europe 12 ˝, Africa 4 ˝, Asia 3 ˝, South America 4 ˝, North America 2 ˝, Oceania ˝.
This would mean that each of these regions would lose: Europe 1 ˝, Africa ˝, Asia 1, North America 1.
While Europe may have sincere disagreements to losing 1 ˝ allocations when they have just placed all 4 teams in the semifinals, and regions like South America are not losing any allocations at all, it should also be seen that the gap between the teams that reached the semifinals and the teams that did not advance out of the first round was the largest of all confederations. Furthermore, with a drop to 28 teams, Europe more or less maintains the same percentage of teams in the tournament, at almost 50%.
The greatest contribution from a drop to 28 teams may well come into the qualification rounds. With all 6 confederations now having a ˝ allocation, a more competitive and better-organized final qualifying tournament may come into fruition involving 6 teams from 6 different nations. I may be ahead of myself, but a tournament like this could take on extreme implications, as three teams will head to the World Cup, which would already give it more importance than the FIFA Confederations Cup, and could also give a reason to totally scrap the much-maligned FIFA World Club Cup Championship.
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