So, I've put a bit more thought into this and I support Infantino's proposal. I'm an African, and this will heavily shape my perspective. These are the numbers of spots allocated to each region
- Europe 13 spots for 56 countries
- Africa 5 / 54
- LATAM 4,5 / 10
- Asia 4,5 / 46
- North America 3,5 / 35
- Oceania 0,5 / 11
Historically, Europe and LATAM have been dominant footballing nations globally, and that is reflected in tournaments won and teams that qualify. Although it is clear that these are the stronger regions in the world, their continued numerical dominance in these tournaments also helps further entrench their superiority by driving opportunity and finances towards them. Europen countries have a 1 in 4 chance of qualifying, and LATM a 2 in 5 chance. The rest of the world is around 1 in 10. This inequality cannot continue unchecked if we want to democratise football.
So you have two options.
- Increase the World Cup to 48 and allocate most of the 16 spots to CONCACAF, CAF, OFC and AFC
- Retain the existing 32 team Cup but, for example, take 4 spots from Europe and 1 from LATM and redistribute them to other regions.
If you position it that way, then you have a proposal that the dominant UEFA will never accept, due to the financial implications. Moreover, Europe has taken many positives from its own expanded European tournament, which gave us the Icelandic fans and the Welsh team's march to the latter stages of the tournament.
The format appears unwieldy at first, but it has it's advantages. Mainly, each group has half as many games as before, and we quickly move to a March-Madness style 32 team knockout. I typically find group stages soporific and cannot wait for the knockout. So I'm looking forward to this tournament. Just as I'm looking forward to the Russia and Qatar World Cups in 2018 and 2022.
