CONCACAF to Lobby for Fourth World Cup Spot

November 27th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

Determining how many automatic spots in the World Cup each region deserves is always a great pub debate and it is one that FIFA will likely have to address in the coming months. The representatives of CONCACAF have agreed that they will lobby FIFA to grant a fourth spot for their region in the 2010 World Cup. In 2006, the region had three automatic spots and its fourth place team, Trinidad and Tobago, was forced to play a qualifier against Bahrain before advancing to the tournament.

CONCACAF General Secretary Chuck Blazer commented, “When we look at the performance of CONCACAF’s fourth team in Germany 2006, Trinidad & Tobago, we see a team that not only held Sweden to a draw but was also just minutes from achieving a similar result against England. Certainly there is an excellent case that CONCACAF has the strength in depth to justify four automatic spots in the 2010 World Cup.”

While I am not usually one to bash CONCACAF, it is only fair to point out that in addition to a better than expected performance by T&T, the region also sent a United States team that was ousted in the first round and a Costa Rica side that was largely feeble. Mexico did advance to the knockout stage only to be eliminated by Argentina. It wasn’t exactly a stellar tournament for the region.

With an extra slot likely going to Africa because South Africa is hosting and based on the performance in 2006, I’d say CONCACAF won’t be getting another automatic spot in 2010, but you never know how these things are actually determined.

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Claude

Instead of Oceania having a play-off with South America’s #5 team I think Oceania should get an automatic place for it’s #1 team. CONCACAF should get 2 automatic spots and play the #5 South American team for another spot. That would free one extra spot and that clearly should go to Europe. Africa had a very poor showing in 2006 with only Ghana advancing to the next round. With the number of quality national teams in Europe it only makes sense to give them the extra spot.
Bob, I have one question for you. Has there been a hosting nation who didn’t advance to the second round or could South Africa be the first?
Bob

Claude: I believe every host nation has advanced to at least the second round. I wouldn’t count out South Africa doing the same. They have some talent and likely will get a favorable draw. If the ‘94 US team could advance, anyone can. Time will tell…

Cheers
Martinez

Oceania, especially now that Australia is not a member, really has no claim to a whole spot for the World Cup. It will practically end up with New Zealand getting a spot on the World Cup every time (with the occasional challenge from another Pacific island).

Let’s put things into a little perspective though. CONCACAF had 3.5 spots, beating the Asian Confederation for that half spot, making it 4. The Asian Confederation, in turn, got only three teams. Of all SEVEN teams involved in this tally, only ONE, Mexico, got to the knockout stage. The other SIX, every last one of them, got last place on their respective groups. And then CONCACAF wants four secured?

IMO, the spots are best kept how they are now, perhaps reducing Asia and CONCACAF to 3 flat. Where would the extra point go? Well, Europe already has enough spots; they may have the quality, but it is a “World” Cup after all and UEFA already has 14 out of 36 spots. Perhaps give South America a full five and let Oceania and Africa dispute the final slot (it would involve the second place team with the best results from Africa’s five groups)?
http://france.theoffside.com sam

Martinez, agreed.
Oceania’s top spot is something like 130th I believe. For democracy’s sake, we have to keep it at half a spot. This is how I’d see things:

3 CONCACAF
4.5
http://france.theoffside.com sam

Haha, sorry, I accidentally pressed Enter. Anyway,
3.5 CONCACAF
4.5 COMNEBOL
15 UEFA
6 CAF
3.5 AFC
0.5 OFC

Let’s face it: In the top 32 spots of the FIFA rankings (I know, but still), it’s like this.
2 CONCACAF
4 COMNEBOL
19 UEFA
7 CAF (Africa)
0 AFC (Asia)
0 OFC

So seriously, do we need 4 asian teams? Trinidad are also cute as their main argument is “We were 10 minutes away from drawing against England!”, but let’s look at the big picture.
Claude

Martinez I was not aware that Australia was not part of Oceania anymore (at least as far as FIFA goes). So I agree with you that Oceania shouldn’t get an automatic spot. To me the world cup should be the 32 best teams in the world and not the top 28 or so and then after that we give the spots away to teams that come in dead last in the first round. Maybe what they could do is take those 1/2 spots and just have a mini tourney to decide who gets those last 2 or 3 spots and if Europe gets 2 out of 3 or Africa or Asia so be it. People always complain that the same teams make it through. Perhaps if we had more competitive teams in spots 30, 31 and 32 we’d see some upsets and get some new blood advancing to the knockout stage. So long as my team, Germany, isn’t the one being eliminated.
dick

Let’s just increase the number of qualifying teams to 40 which puts an extra team in each group with the top two qualifying for the round of 16. More football matches is always a good thing.

4 CONCACAF
6.5 COMNEBOL
16 UEFA
7 CAF
5.5 ASIA
1 OCEANIA

Feel free to change around the numbers above.
Claude

Dick, I don’t think FIFA will support your plan. I know the temptation is great for more games so FIFA officials can sculp prime tickets for tons of money. However, putting 5 in a group will remind FIFA too much of the first round game of 1982 between Germany and Austria. Back in 1982 the last group of first round games were not played simultaneously. The Austrians and Germans knew what result they needed which was a German win and for Austria to lose by 2 goals or less. Germany scored in about the first 12 minutes and starting around the 20 minute mark neither side was interested in scoring any more goals. So the two sides leisurely kicked the ball back and forth for the rest of the game. I was in Germany at the time and saw the game on German TV. The German press was extremely upset at both teams for such unsportsmanlike conduct. Since then the third group games are played simultaneously so that this type of fiasco will be harder to repeat.
I guess FIFA could go to 4 groups of 10 with the top 6 second place group teams advancing with the group winners. That might not be a bad idea because it may force teams not to play for a tie but to go for the win since second place would be no guarantee of an advance. At least that’s the spin of this “nonentity” here in Los Angeles.
Chuck

CONCACAF was very fortunate to have been given 3.5 slots in the last World Cup. In no way do I believe they are justified in getting a full four slots. At the most, they should only have 3.0 slots, and a better allocatoin would be 2.5. I’d hate to go down to 2.0, but a lot of people could make a convincing arguement that this is all CONCACAF deserves.

I disagree with expanding the field to 40. IMO, 32 is even too many. 32 teams means some bad teams get into the “finals,” and I would prefer that only good teams got in.

Heck, even UKRAINE can make it to the second round, if Tunisia and Saudi Arabia are in their group…

I’d like to see a 24-team tournament, allocated accordingly:
1.0 – Host Country
4.5 – CONMEBOL (South America)
0.5 – OFC (Oceana)
2.5 – CONCACAF (North America)
2.5 – Asia (AFC)
3.5 – Africa (CAF)
9.5 – UEFA (Europe)

Let .5 CONMEBOL face .5 CONCACAF
Let .5 AFC face .5 Oceana
Let .5 Africa face .5 Europe

That way, at least most of the games will be in the same general time zone (instead of Australians getting up in the middle of the night to watch the first leg against Uraguay, for example).
dick

24 teams might actually be better this might prevent pathetic groups like in WC2002 Brazil grouped with Turkey, China and Costa Rica, give me a break! Who did Brazil bribe to get this group of misfits?!?
http://www.footballexpo.com marcel

We usually perform quite well.

The last world cup was our worst. We deserve a a extra spot IMHO.
Ben

I think it would be interesting to have 40 teams in the world cup, but to increase world cup slots for CONMEBOL,OFC, CONCACAF, AFC or CAF with only 32 teams qualifying is rediculous when you look at performances from each region. With UEFA having by far the largest amount of teams in the top 32 in the world, and neither OFC or AFC having one it makes no sence that they have so many qualifying spots. As no region aside from UEFA and CONMEBOL has ever really accomblished much in the world cup I can not see how any could argue to take qualifying spots away from these regions.
Countries like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland and Russia are way better than countries like Honduras, Saudi Arabia, Canada, New Zealand, Iran and Chile who will likely qualify if more QF spots are taken from UEFA.
Here is my suggesion.
32 teams 40 teams
Host 1 1
UEFA 16 20.5
CONMEBOL 4.5 5.5
CAF 4.5 5.5
CONCACAF 3 3.5
AFC 2.5 3.5
OFC 0.5 0.5