Report Calls for World Cup Every Two Years

Personally I would like to see it played every couple of years but I don’t know how that could done and still have fair qualification processes for the teams.

I’d like it to stay every 4 years, but stretch out the actual competition, perhaps by playing your group opponents twice instead of once.

I don’t think it is feasible to play the World Cup every two years. Our professional players play enough football as it is. Besides the whole World cup europhia will all were off. I always look forward to the World Cup every four years. I hope it stays that way.

The problem with going every 2 years is that we have the Olympics that alternate with the World Cup. So it is the Olympics, then 2 years later, the World Cup, then 2 years later the Olympics, etc. Keep it as is.

Two years is a lot, yet four years isn’t enough. We want to see the champions more often, yet we don’t want the World Cup to lose it’s huge build-up and excitement.

3 years is ideal.

3/4 years is good

Keep it as it is. We have European Championship that alters with the World Cup anyway. There’s always a big soccer event every two years.

Maybe all the continental championships (European Championship, Copa America, Concacaf Gold Cup, Asian Cup and African Cup of Nations) can be held at the same time every four years. This will gain some sort of momentum like a ‘World Cup’ on a smaller scale.

I think it’s pretty much perfect as it is. As you say, a big part of the exictement is that it only happens once every four years. That’s what makes it so brilliant.

i think perhapes there should be a world league as well as the world cup. have each every 4 years. that way perhaps world rankings could be more accurate and fair. i mean as the article stated on the weekend, the world cup isnt necessarily made up of the most deserving teams. some regions are weak compared to others. example the north american qualifying. its ony a direct route so the world cup can make an impact in the states.

Screw the big clubs! They have already done their bit to destroy the unpredictability of european club football by having the Champion’s League played in groups instead of all-out knockout and making sure they get pretty much all the media revenue.
I love the fact that the world cup is only played every four years and i love all the build-up for it. And i love that teams like Angola, Iran, etc. get a chance to play the big teams.
The world cup is perfect as it is. And if worse comes to worse we could even do without the players from the big clubs.

R.

Keep it once every 4 years. The anticipation is killing me and i love it.

i think the world cup has its merets. but wouldnt a competition where the best ranked teams play each other be a good idea as well.

My wife just asked me this question last night…”Why the WC is only every 4 years and not maybe every 2 years”.

Well, after peeling off the usual points like the Olympic games, the European Championships (every 2 years alternating with the WC), the Copa America, Asia & African Nations Cup, the FIFA World Youth Championships she still mentioned well it could still happen. Then I go into the logistics of these competitions (just like a WC) with qualifying etc and then she started to understand the magnitude of the WC and these various championships.

Then we go into the fact that the WC would lose its interest, its viability, its meaning, its soul by selling out to be more frequent. Part of being the WC Champion is able to brag for 4 years that you are the best footballing nation in the world. Imagine having it every 2 years, no time to brag!!!!

It’s just a similar situation to the Champions League. I have not been glued to the Champions League as I was when the competition was the Champions Cup (being a strictly knock-out competition for the domestic league winners in Europe). This competition has lost its lustre and I am having a hard time getting into it as previously.

I would hate this to happen to the World Cup.

Every 4 years is perfect.

Ward off the money whores.

ye i agree with most here n say we should keep the world cup as it is. To reduce it to a biennial competition would significantly decrease the status and tradition of the competition which is something which no true football fans (unlike these greedy dictators of clubs) wants.

Yeah, keep it as it is. Part of the magic of a WC is that you never know what will actually happen, there’s a whole aura around players and teams you know have changed too much after the past WC. Once every 4 years just makes it more special.

What your article didn’t mentioon is that initially this was a proposal, not by G14, but by the wild man of football, FIFA chairman Sepp Blatter. The G14 (actually representing 18 clubs – work that one out) simply jumped on his bandwagon.

As always, AS ALWAYS, the podgy, corporate thieves never read, or didn’t understand, the fable about the goose that laid the golden egg. Make the WC biennial, and you kill it. But no, all the G are interested in are big sponsors payouts for themselves. May they all choke on their diamonds.

Every 4 years is good. Playing every 2 years would lose the tournaments prestigiousness.

If only, as one said, the competition was stretched out in the World Cup Finals, each game has too much importance as it is.

Here’s a novel idea; how about creating more slots for African teams in the World Cup. There are just as many countries in the CAF as in EUFA, but Africa gets a measly 5 slots compared to Europes 14 (or 16?). Obviously it is set this way because there is bigger investment in Europe, but it would make the event much more competetive and exciting. Atleast give them 3 more slots. 8 countries seem about right. Imagine a World Cup where Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Ghana all featured in a World Cup? I’m sure one of them would have won it by now.

Just my two cents.

I can safely say that i agree with the original poster BOB and every1 else.

Having the World Cup, argubably the most global event out there – minus the Olympics – every 2yrs would really devalue the tournament as a whole.

It would also ruin the build up 2 the Tournamen, the whole structure and value of the tournament.

There are compeitions in between as well that being the Euro. Champs, African Cup Of Nations, Gold Cup, Copa America and the Asian Champs, and lets not forget about the Confederations Cup which is also played in between as well

By having a World Cup every 2years these tournaments would be pratically worthless which of course they’re not.

The current structure of every 4rys is perfect as because of its tournament history it really is worth the wait.

Finally I also partly agree with what BIDEMI has said in having more slots for other Federations teams. I suppose it would make it somewhat more ‘fairer’ by having maybe 1 more team from each federation. The problem that 8 spots from the other federations is that it would mukk up slightly the World Cup and all the qualifying process which has been right as it has since i can remember.

Why can’t they leave football alone? They’ve already spoiled the European Cup making the rich clubs rich while the poor ones go to the wall. Look at the domination by a small amount of teams in nearly every league, thats what happens.

Stop messing with our beautiful game.

Keep the WC to every 4 years otherwise you have a conflict with the Olympics and the European cup and the other continental cups.

As for Africa getting more places, they don’t deserve it. The best teams come from Europe and South America. I can’t see any of the African teams beating the likes of Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Italy, England, France etc. You add more teams from the Africa or Asia and decrease the teams from Europe you just end up deluting the quality of the WC.

[...] Uff, so much to catch up with today. Have you heard of the idea to make the World Cup a 2-year-deal? According to the Financial Times some of the influencial guys in Europe are thinking about that. To read the full story you´d have to subscribe over there but I´ve found a bit shorter a version of that text over at the blog of the Washington Post. [...]

TO THE CLUBS THAT WANT THE WORLD CUP TO GO FROM EVERY 4 YEARS TO EVERY 2! STOP SMOKING IT GREEN. THE EXCITEMENT OF IT ALL IS THE ANTICIPATION TO FOLLOW YOUR COUNTRY’S EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, TOWARDS QUALIFICATION AND FINAL STEP TO WORLD CUP PARTICIPANT, THAT’S SOMETHING THAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE. BY GOING EVERY 2 YEARS, IT TAKES AWAY FROM THE EXCITEMENT AND OTHER SPORTING VENUES. THE WHOLE IDEA OF 4 YEARS IS TO MAKE PLANS AND SAVE YOUR MONEY FOR YOUR TRIP TO THIS GREAT ARENA. I HAVE DONE THIS WITH MY COUNTRY COLOMBIA. GOING TO ITALY AND SEEING THEM HERE, IN MY BACK YARD (USA) EVERY 4 YEARS IS PERFECT DON’T CHANGE IT PLEASE!!!

G-14 or whatever your names are, keep your hands of our world cup. This is not the chamions league where you make the calls. Every 4 years is fine otherwise it’ll lose its value. I love following the qualifications and counting the days as it nears. Why would they want to kill the excitement for say making more money out of tv rights.
Keep our beautiful game as it is and the world cup every 4 years. Everyone say no to time outs in soccer.

FIFA, hands off UEFA!

As Rev PAFC commented, this is not UEFA’s idea (who are prepared to fight it tooth and claw), but Blatter’s. Blatter has a grudge against UEFA, so he’s just pretending to humour the G-14, who are no friends of UEFA either. UEFA are no saints themselves, but so far they have somehow managed to restrain the richest clubs in the continent somewhat.

BIDEMI, this is the most idiotic idea I’ve ever heard. If you’re interested about the standard of the game, we should be giving Europe MORE places, not less. Europe deserves about 20 places in the World Cup finals, and Africa is extremely lucky to have 5, whereas it should have about 2-3. Right now the European teams are far far better than anybody else, apart from Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and the odd South American or third world (football-wise) country.

If you are really serious about this, you should be clamouring gor intercontinental qualifying groups. You can have a first round within continents, and then a second intercontinental qualifying round. Of course, in the beginning it would bring us more teams like Austria, Belgium, Turkey, Denmark, Norway, not to mention Greece, Romania and Russia. But it would be much fairer than the current system. Trinidad, Togo, Costa Rica, Saudi Arabia, the States and Australia even, shouldn’t be in playing in the World Cup finals because they just aren’t good enough. Eventually, via such a system, third world teams like Australia, the States and Japan (yes, they are all part of football’s third world, and long may they remain there, or even better get relegated to the fourth world with Chad, Laos, American Samoa and the Comoros) would be able to acquire some real competitive experience, and after some tries would be able to qualify on merit, even going as far as to knock out of the finals a European team.

By now, any club, even the poorest one, can change its whole squad from one year to the next. National teams can’t do that, since they can’t sign anybody up. I am no nationalist myself, and I have no liking whatsoever for countries and nations. But I do enjoy the World Cups and most national team games, because it’s the only sort of game where you just cannot buy success, ala Roman Abramovich. You have to invest in young players, and then wait for them to come up through the ranks. You also have to invest a serious amount of money in inrastructure, and make sure that the conditions are in place for developing your own talent (eg a proper, up and running football league, footballers that are paid promptly, etc). With any club in Europe (and not just the G-14) they might be here today and gone tomorrow. This could never happen to you with football teams, providing your country does not hit the self destruct button.

The world cup has to be played every 4 years, or it would stop being the main sport event in the world

I would say do a another tournament every 4 years the same years the olympics are played, like a single elminitation tournament with 50 teams where number 1 would play number 50, that way we have beter rankings and a good tournamente every 2 years. What say you?

The world cup should played every four years as it is now.However all the continental competitions(African cup of Nations,Copa America, Gold Cup, Asia cup and the European) shuold be played at the same period. The confederatios cup shoiuld be replaced by an Inter continental cup (africa, eurpoe, south america, north and central america, asia and oceania playing against one another

I think the Confederations cup is an intercontinental cup already. However, I think playing it always a year before the WC and in the same country the WC is going to be held is a bit of an anticlimax for the Confederations Cup. Sure, it’s a good logistic exercise, but they may as well have a different tournament and leave the Confederations Cup for another country. The Confederations Cup already doesn’t have much impact, and playing it just before the WC itself dwarves it even more, maybe it should be played the year after the world cup, sort of as a consolation prize for the countries that lost in the world cup.

I agree, the 4 year cycle is perfect, no need to toy around with it. It has been proven right last century, and should remain like that for next century. Maybe 3 years could also work, but then you would have to change the Olympics to 3 years as well, otherwise they would coincide every 12 years. So changing it to 3 years sounds like too much of a hassle, I say leave it as it is.

i think the four year break is also ideal for generational gaps in football.

Would you really want to watch Ronaldinho play in 6 World Cups?

It’s far more intriguing to witness a legend like Zidane, playing in only his 3rd WC, exit the game on a world stage.

makes sense no?

To swthrhs:

I disagree with your statement about European teams are far better than anybody else apart from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

European teams just have more exposure. That doesn’t mean they are better. Besides, European teams can only win when the World Cup is staged in Europe. That’s a fact.

Up to now, the World Cup is hosted in Europe about every 8 years. Imagine if the World Cup gets played in Europe every 24 years. We’ll see how good the European teams really are.

European teams are just like Beckham. Lots of media exposure, lots of glamours, but never delivers when playing outside their own continents.

It’s not going to happen, what’s going to happen to the European Championships? Which happens two years after every World Cup?

2006 – World Cup finals
2007 – qualifiers for Euro’s
2008 – European Cup finals
2009 – qualifiers for World Cup
2010 – World Cup finals

Where does the World Cup fit in here?

And besides, the European Championships is a mini World Cup in Europe.

World cup every four years, bad idea as much as we all want to see our national teams play the beauty is in having such a long wait so that the determination of the players and the quality of play is that much better cause of the limited chance of winning such a grandiose event. Now those that consistently say the best teams are in europe need a lesson in all types of history(racism, yes it plays a part in this but i wont divulge in this and secondly in football itself). To say that the African teams dont deserve 8teams is stupid and dat the European teams deserve more stamps out away the name world cup and secondly lets not forget that both europe and africa have the same number of teams trying to qualify (52). Also lets look at some of the major european footballing nations and not forget that some of their players are actually naturalized africans playing on their teams(homelands dessimated by european nations so they run to europe to seek better living and work). Lastly lets try to remember the 1994 world cup and italy squeaking by Nigeria in the 89th minute by a quite lucky goal by mr Roberto Baggio and the remnants of this episode oh yea I believe Nigeria won the 1996 olympics in Atlanta the next year. so before we say tha t there are subpar teams in Africa lets not forget some of the major facts and the fact that a power house like Nigeria or Cameroun is not in the world cup this year should signify the need for more African teams and there I say for other Asian and South American teams that dont get a chance to play due to European political dominance.

Once every two years..? why wait for such a long time…? Seriously, not just because I am a big soccer fun and a player, but once every two years would benefit many, from a basic sport perspective in which many talents and countries would have “their opportunity” to a pure economic standpooint . This would really help some countries developing their turism machinery, other that those who already made it.

I think we should have it every 2nd year and just drop the regionale qualifications which outside Europe are down emphasis anyway – it is really a shame that we only see some of the stars maybe once or twice during a career. This would also be great for many nations outside Europe to further build up the interst for soccer in their countries- So for a global perspective, yes to every second year. I would be happy for that. Bring it on.

Br

Martin
Denmark

oh I meant with regional qualification – the championships: copa america, Euro, african cup etc

a few extra good points -

Twelve stadiums. A million fans. Yes, I know what you’re thinking . . .

Why is the World Cup so small and over so quickly? Already I am at panic stations. The knockout stages, I know, bring thrilling games and plentiful drama. But they also bring something altogether more sinister. From now on our ration of sweet, juicy football will be cut from three matches a day to two. Then there will be just one match every 24 hours. And finally, as we get down to the real meat, there will be days when there is no football at all. None. Nada. Rien. Zip. Zero. It is the spectre that haunts every World Cup.

From the moment the opening ceremony ends and no matter how much you are enjoying the festivities, the experienced World Cup watcher lives with a heartburn fear that gnaws at the soul. This is great, but soon there will be less football; then there will be none.

Fifa must act. What are they going to do about this football famine they will soon be so smugly overseeing? Here are four ideas for starters.

One, play the World Cup every two years. It’s magnificent, so why ration it? The African Cup of Nations is glorious but happens in the middle of the European season; abolish. The European Championship is the World Cup without Argentina and Brazil; elbow. The South American championship is World Cup qualifiers without a global prize at the end; get rid.

every 2 years is not a good idea at all , the long wait makes the thing all the more appealing.

Also think from the teams point, they will loose their appetite in terms that , ok anyways we loose this year, theres always a second chance in a couple of years. the fatc that they have to wait for 4 years makes them all charged up as if there maybe no second chance , since 4 years is quite sometime and much can happen in between

keeep as is!

dear….

i certainly think that the worldcup needs some improvements

arguments
1)it is useless to play the game
for the 3rd and 4th plac it is so boaring

2)teams with great football talents who don’t qualify have to
wait too long before they can participate , talents don’t get
enough experience

3) many other arguments like
the huge footballmarkets in e.g. india and china are not reached

possible solutions
——————
1) let the first 8 teams compete every year to decide who is really the best( like in boxing)( A teams)

2) create B and C teams

etceteraaa

It is true that the w.c. is special because it is every four years but I think its too long to wait four years for this. I think every two years would still be special because it is a great sport
and it would be better for all. In fact the players would have a better chance to make more out of their careers. So why not! more fun,
more games, and more money.

I found this page searching for the term ‘world cup every year’ on google because I was thinking why don’t they just make it a yearly event – perhaps at the expense of making the other tournaments less relevant. In the U.S. they have a NFL (football) championship every year, a baseball championship every year, and a basketball championship every year. 4 years seems so depressingly long to wait to see my favorite players and team(s) again – some may not even be around by then if an injury ends their career early. I think every 2 years would be perfect. It’s so much more than soccer – it gets the world together in a fun, non-political way and gets everyone talking. Someone else said it best: “The World Cup is the ideal stage. It is hard to compare GDPs and political power in a way that is quite as visually appealing, and in the World Cup the USA does not dominate and little countries have a chance and a say in the movements of the world.”