The World Cup is my favorite sporting event. As the marquee event in my favorite sport it is an easy choice for my favorite event, but there is more to it than that. The passion, emotion, and national pride on display in the World Cup is unparalleled and the constant action through the group stages ad the knockout rounds is awesome to watch. However, in January, FIFA unanimously voted to expand the World Cup from 32 teams to 48 teams, increasing the pool of participants by 50%. The current format of the tournament is 8 groups of 4 teams , with each team playing the other teams in its group one time and the two teams with the best record in their group move onto the knockout stage leaving 16 teams to play a single elimination tournament to decide the winner. In the new format, there would be 16 groups of 3 teams. With 2 teams from each group moving forward to a 32 team single elimination format. There are countless problems with this format and it could begin to water down the product seen at the World Cup.
The main argument by FIFA to implement this change is that it increases the amount of teams participating in the World Cup and allows more teams to enjoy the event while not making the tournament last any longer. FIFA also argues that the new format will allow soccer to develop in more nations as their people get excited about their nation’s participation in the tournament. While these are all valid points for expansion I believe that the cons simply outweigh the pros.
Firstly, the groups being reduced to 3 teams will raise some serious issues regarding fair play and integrity. In the current World Cup set up, the final games of the group stage are played concurrently to prevent teams from agreeing to a favorable result and fixing the match so that they both advance. With only 3 teams in the group two teams will be able to know what they have to do to advance when they play the final game. An example of when teams organized a favorable result is the match between West Germany and Austria in the 1982 World Cup where the teams kicked the ball around for most of the game and allowed West Germany to win 1-0 sending both West Germany and Austria through to the knockout stage ahead of Algeria. The match was dubbed the Disgrace of Gijon and lead to protests and riots. With the rules being implemented this scenario is incredibly likely. If Team A and Team B tie in the first match, and Team C beats Team B in the second match, Team A and Team C could simply tie in the third match and both would go forward easily. This could seriously hurt the competitive spirit of the World Cup.
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Also, this would increase the amount of games, and therefore the amount of stadiums, that the host would have to prepare for. This would lead to less nations being able to host the world cup and making the tournament truly international. Another concerning point is that this move seems like another cash grab by FIFA. Estimates state that these changes will bring another $1 Billion to FIFA. For perspective the 2014 World Cup earned FIFA $5.5 Billion. FIFA has certainly been mired in corruption lately, with the awarding of the 2022 World Cup being handed to Qatar under dubious circumstances to say the least.
All in all, I worry that these moves by FIFA highlight a poor direction and high levels of corruption by the organization. I only hope that they can start to make decisions for the benefit of the sport and not for their own interests.
Images:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/57466/disgrace-gijon-most-controversial-match-world-cup-history
http://united-europe-news.blogspot.com/2017/01/sport-world-exclusive-fifa-president.html
I certainly agree with you in that this seems like a way for FIFA to make more money. It seems like that’s all people care about, which stinks because it takes away from the hard work and dedication the athletes put forth to prepare for these tournaments. At least more teams will be able to participate so then perhaps the sport will be able to grow more around the world. However, it shouldn’t come at the expense of the integrity of the sport.
I have to be honest, I have close to zero knowledge concerning FIFA and the actual event. But by reading this, I agree with you that the organization’s direction has taken a wrong turn. The above comment also mentions the efforts dedicated by the athletes, which renders me to think that there is a more vital essence that FIFA should consider when making these decisions. Hopefully they’ll remember the roots of the event, and uphold the benefit of the sport.