Ever since finishing my last post, I've gotten to thinking about what a 40-team World Cup might look like. Specifically, I was curious to see how the eight additional teams would affect the tournament. There are certainly enough quality teams that don't qualify for the World Cup each time, but would you really have the 40 best countries if the field was expanded? I'm not sure. In fact, it might actually dilute the product.
The talk about 40 really got going when UEFA President Michel Platini suggested it in October. His comments were a direct response to FIFA President Sepp Blatter saying that he'd like to see more representation from Africa and Asia, presumably at the expense of Europe and South America. Platini argued that instead of taking berths away from Europe, you could instead get your additional representation by increasing the field size. Platini's plan would call for one additional berth from Europe, as well as two from Africa, two from Asia, two from the Americas and one from Oceania.
Of course, this should be taken with a grain of salt, seeing as Platini is Blatter's likely opponent for the FIFA presidency next year, and this will help him gain support from the Asian, African and Oceanic nations, as well as those in the Caribbean. Oceania currently doesn't have an automatic berth in the World Cup finals. Instead, whoever wins the Oceania qualifying tournament has to go into a home-and-home playoff for a berth (this cycle it was New Zealand, which lost to Mexico). That's one of the reasons why Australia left Oceania to join the Asian Federation after the 2006 World Cup. Likewise, Platini suggested that one of those extra American berths could automatically go to a Caribbean nation, although I'm not sure how that would work, seeing as the Caribbean nations are all a part of CONCACAF.
Anyway, Platini would like to see the World Cup expanded in time for Russia 2018. With qualifying set to start in 2015, that decision would have to be made fairly soon, so it seems highly unlikely that the field for Russia would be any larger than the current 32. But if Platini does run for FIFA president and wins the election, he'd probably try to push it through for 2022 and beyond.
Platini's plan sounds simple enough. Instead of eight groups of four, it would be eight groups of five. But how would that work exactly? The World Cup currently consists of 64 games played over a span of about a month. Adding eight teams would add 32 games to the tournament, and that's assuming the knockout round remains the same. If they were to give the group winners a bye and add a Round of 24, that's eight more games, bringing the total number to 104. Or, 50 more than the current number. Is it just me, or is that a lot?
It obviously wouldn't be possible to play 96 games in the current 31-day format. With four games a day during group play (as opposed to the current three), you'd need 38 days to complete the tournament. Adding a week to make it a five-week tournament wouldn't ruffle too many feathers, but that gives the teams just three days off between every game, so you'd probably have to go even longer than that. And a Round of 24 would add four days to the knockout round, as well.
And that's where the problems could come in. Because that's where it impacts the club schedules. The Champions League final is at the end of May and the European leagues start the new season in mid-August. That's roughly 10 weeks. Taking six or seven of those 10 away is a lot to ask, and it would be incredibly unfair to the players, many of whom are highly compensated, but also can't be expected to perform at the same high level 12 months a year with no time off. The European teams would also probably have to forego their summer exhibition trips to the U.S., which I doubt anyone wants.
Even more than that, though, the byes, which sound good in theory, would actually become problematic. With five teams in a group, there would have to be a bye during each round of group play games, and you'd be going from six games per group to 10. But whoever has the first bye could conceivably wait more than a week to play its first game (and some teams would play two games before others play their first). Likewise, the team with the last bye in each group might be sitting around waiting to see if they advance to the knockout round, then go into that game with potentially more than a week of rest against an opponent that just played.
I drew out a hypothetical 40-team World Cup to see what the schedule would look like. As the hosts, Russia would be playing the opening game, which is currently scheduled for Friday, June 8. Assuming the current format holds, Russia would be the top seed in Group A, so that makes assembling their hypothetical schedule easy. After the opener, Russia would play again on Wednesday, June 13, then Sunday, June 17. With their bye coming in the fourth game slot, they'd then wait more than a week before concluding group play on Monday, June 25. The Round of 16 would start almost a week later on June 30-July 1.
But the No. 5 team in Group H, which would have a bye on the first game day, wouldn't play its first game until Saturday, June 16, the day before Russia plays its third game. And going back to Group A for a second, whoever has the last bye would play their last group game on Thursday, June 21. Nine or 10 days before a potential Round of 16 game. It also then becomes impossible to have the simultaneous final group games, since one team in each group would already be done.
Then there are the stadiums, of which you'd almost certainly need more than the 12 FIFA currently requires. To play 96 games in 12 stadiums, each venue would have to host eight. That's not impossible, nor is it unrealistic, but it would be much less of a burden to play six games each in 16 different stadiums. You can't add four cities to a World Cup just like that, though. These things take years to plan for a reason.
Overall, the concept of a 40-team World Cup doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. Especially since there are more than 200 countries in FIFA. But the more you think about it, the more you realize it might not work. It could be a logistical nightmare, in a number of respects.
Besides, I haven't heard any complaints about the 32-team format, which seems to work pretty well for everybody. As the old saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The World Cup ain't broke. And expanding it from 32 teams to 40 might not necessarily make it better.
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