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2005-11-17 - World Cup Qualifying Places

It pains me to say it but already there's stories about confederations demanding more places at the World Cup. I must say that I will not be happy if the current system is adjusted once more. Rather than adjusting the places that confederations currently get, I feel very strongly that the system must be changed altogether. Here's the situation for the 2006 World Cup:

AFC: 4 automatic + 1 playoff opportunity
CAF: 5
CONCACAF: 3 automatic + 1 playoff opportunity
CONMEBOL: 4 automatic + 1 playoff opportunity
OCEANIA: 0 automatic + 1 playoff opportunity
UEFA: 13 (14 including hosts Germany)

What I'd like to see instead is a system whereby each confederation's number of automatic places is reduced but that each confederations is given several qualifying places for a 'World qualifying' playoff system depending on some known factors, perhaps the FIFA ranking, but in any case something that can't be argued about in a subjective manner. Any system must be objective and determine the best countries in the playoff system, and not just the best countries per continent. For example, and this is only an example because there must first be some official rules how the places are determined:

AFC: 3 automatic, 2 playoff places
CAF: 4 automatic, 2 playoff places
CONCACAF: 2 automatic, 3 playoff places
CONMEBOL: 3 automatic, 3 playoff places
OCEANIA: 0 automatic, 1 playoff place (assuming Australia stay in AFC)
UEFA: 11 automatic, 5 playoff places

That would mean 24 automatic qualifiers (including the hosts) and leave 8 places for the 16 countries that would qualify for the playoffs. Perhaps the playoffs could be played as four groups of four teams, with the top two in each group qualifying for the finals. The groups would need to be objectively determined so as to award places to teams that have a better 'ranking' (given whatever the rules are, perhaps just the FIFA ranking) than others.

You may ask where the time would come from to play such a 'playoff' tournament. Well, for a start the qualifiers could begin 7 or 8 months before the current qualifiers begin. That would kill two birds with one stone because rather than 'friendly' matches being played between January-August before the current World Cup qualifiers start, we'd replace them with competitive ones. Club managers would have nothing to complain about because all matches would be competitive!

Another solution would of course be to make sure that continental championships act as qualification tournaments for the World Cup, much like the system adopted this time for the African Nations Cup. Rather than playing two qualification tournaments, one qualification tournament is used for both. Although that may not work in Europe as it would mean qualifiers would be known two years before the tournament starts, you could always change the qualifying system in the same way as the World Cup qualifying proposed here, i.e. a smaller number of teams qualifying automatically and then a smaller (overall) qualification tournament for a larger number of 'playoff' contenders.

Or how about making the World Cup happen every three years!?!?!? That way you could have continental championships played the year before, and have a 'rest' year after the World Cup. To me that seems like the perfect solution!

Anyway, enough about this for the time being, I just hope in the meantime there's not another war with peoples' personal opinions coming into it. We must have objective ways that make the decisions without subjectivity coming into it!

2005-11-17 - Response

Posted by Anonymous

A couple of things to remember.

The better team of two (or any number) is always more likely to be identified if all teams play more games (i.e. a group qualification). Therefore it follows that the more 2 leg playoffs decide who goes into the world cup finals, the more times the better team from the two playing off won't go through.

The second groups stage idea is better than a lot of two-leg playoffs but would involve much more travelling between confederations, not good for fans.

There is a objective method to get the number of qualification places for each confederation, that is the past performance of teams from that confederation in the world cup finals. The problem with this is that it is slow to change.

So the current procedure looks better than your alternatives to me (apart from the world cup every 3 years idea, this has absolutely no chance of happening though).

The numbers from each federation may be wrong, but at least they throw up teams from all over the world, a completely free qualification would give far more uefa teams in the finals and I don't think even uefa teams want that.

Cheers

JC

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2005-11-17 - Re: Response

Posted by rdasilva

> There is a objective method to get the number of qualification
> places for each confederation, that is the past performance of
> teams from that confederation in the world cup finals. The
> problem with this is that it is slow to change.

That's the system that I totally disagree with. It of course not only depends on the allocation for that World Cup being right in the first place, but also that nothing has changed in four years as you say. I think looking at the FIFA ranking is a far better solution as it most accurately (at present) represents the status of teams.

Also, I'm not sure if you misunderstand me on the playoff situation. I'm talking about having four groups of four for playoffs, and not rely on matches between only two teams for one place. I'd rather see more teams involved and get the best ones. That's what a World Championship should deserve, and not just a selection from the World. I totally agree that every continent should have a fair chance of getting represented, but the system I describe of course has that. It's the same argument about getting a representation from every race in the government. Yes, that's the ideal situation, but wouldn't you rather have the best people in those positions in the first place? Anyway, let's not open a can of worms! :-)

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2005-11-17 - A few thoughts

Posted by Anonymous

Just thought I’d make a few comments about the current qualifying format. While I agree with you that the current situation is flawed due to unfair distribution of places across continents I can’t accept that your suggested play-off system would work. For instance likely qualifiers for the playoffs this time round would have included Angola, Togo, T&T and Guatemala. With these nations surely among the favourites to drop out in the worldwide play-off phase I believe there would be little incentive for fans of any of the above to make the long and costly trips to their opponents, of which there would of course be three.

Another major problem I see with the current system is that it’s too easy for the big teams in North America, and to a lesser extent Asia and South America to qualify under their respective qualifying formats, due to the lack of quality opposition. Can you imagine Mexico or United States not qualifying for a World Cup given the level of their opponents and the round robin system they play through? This gives an unfair advantage to these continents as they almost always send their strongest teams to the World Cup, in which their subsequent performance gives more cause for the confederation to argue for extra places.

One solution I believe to these problems is the fairly drastic measure of cutting the total number of finals places back down to sixteen and then to use a diluted play-off format similar to the one you suggested. I know people will argue that this would make it practically impossible for many of the current qualifiers to ever appear at the finals but I think it would improve the entertainment dramatically. Far too often nowadays a small team will come up against a much larger one and simply defend deeply throughout the whole game hoping to nick a goal on the counter attack, making for a thoroughly boring spectacle for fans of both sides. This isn’t so much the case with bigger nations as their fans usually demand wins with a certain degree of style and the tightness of the tournament right from the start would mean one moment of magic could decide a group.

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2005-11-19 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Anonymous

" The numbers from each federation may be wrong, but at least they throw up teams from all over the world, a completely free qualification would give far more uefa teams in the finals and I don't think even uefa teams want that. "

I disagree with the second part of that sentence. I don't think the 16th European team is 100% certain to beat the African 6th or the Asian 5th.

I see play-offs as a way to modulate the number of teams by confederation according to their relative strength ; I don't really care about the "strongest" being qualified, because when the difference in strength is huge, a single game is enough to eliminate the weakest and it's only what matters.

I like the 24 direct + 8 play-off system (you can make it being 22+10 or whatever) and I'd prefer the play-off games to be played on a single game in neutral venue. This can be done at the host's, maybe in spring prior to the world cup

I remember a Spain-Yugoslavia in Germany in spring 1974 for instance ...

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2005-11-19 - Untitled Comment

Posted by svsvsv

as usual I forgot to id me for that comment above ...

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2005-11-22 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Michael

I must say we have an interesting discussion going on !

Raouls' idea of having 24 automatic places and 16 countries competing for the 8 remaining spots is interesting. I like the idea of forming 4x4 groups and let the top 2 qualify for the finals. It makes teams less depending of the luck-factor because they play more matches and it makes teams less dependent on a good or back playoff draw.

Off topic:
About the recent playoffs; I am still wondering why already from the start it was set that the Conmebol had to play with OFC and Concacaf with AFC. Why not a open draw? Maybe it is politics of FIFA to have at least 4 (AFC) + 3 (Concacaf) + 1 playoff = 8 representatives of both confederations in the finals ? Because linking them to either OFC or Conmebol would likely have resulted for them in no qualifier via the playoff.

Back on topic:
Anyhow; about a new playoff system. I read some remarks about all the travelling between the confederations and the difficulties for the supporters to follow their team and all the extra matches.

I think those problems you can easily solve when every playoff group (including 2 seeded teams based on the FIFA ranking) plays in a neutral country or even a neutral continent. Every team plays three matches in 7 days and at the end of the week the top two is qualified. Of course the third round of these matches needs to be played at the same time. Supporters need only to stay one week abroad and can watch their team three times playing.

Maybe playing in a neutral country would lead to empty stadions because the local people are not interested in a playoff without their national team participating. But I think that if the first and second round matches are played at the same day in the same stadion with a small break in between, and you are allowed to watch both matches with one ticket it will attract many "locals". Because then you are always sure you will see the two seeded teams in action. And to watch the four groups of fans in the stadion at the same time is also funny to see :-) The third round would be the decisive round, so this should also be interesting for "locals" although they would see only one match.

Or maybe to guarantee full stadions, you should host the event in the country with the lowest FIFA ranking in the group (and FIFA covering the expenses in case that country isn't that rich). For sure you have some difficult and thus interesting matches when the two seeded teams play the host...

(For FIFA itself this is of course commercially very interesting. Selling the TV-broadcasting rights for a "one week footbal tournament with WC Qualifying at stake"...)

I look forward on the follow ups :)

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