By Andrew Warshaw
October 4 – As John McEnroe famously said, you cannot be serious. Or maybe a line from Monty Python’s ‘Life of Brian’ might be equally apt: “He’s making it up as he goes along.” Not content with proposing a 40-team World Cup as part of his election manifesto, FIFA president Gianni Infantino now says he wants to go even further and expand the finals to 48 nations.
To be fair to Infantino, under this proposal 16 of the 48 would go home after just one knockout match, and the remainder of the tournament would be played, as now, with a 32-team group stage, followed by the traditional knockout phase.
However, with different stakeholders already expressing their displeasure at the 40-team idea, one wonders how Infantino’s latest brainwave will go down.
His latest proposal came during an event at Bogota’s Sergio Arboleda university, according to Colombian media, with a final decision to be taken by the ruling FIFA Council in January. FIFA have confirmed that the reports were accurate.
“These are ideas to find the best solution, we will debate them this month and we will decide everything by 2017,” Infantino was quoted as saying.
Under the plan, almost certainly up for discussion at the Council’s first session next week, there would be a preliminary knockout round involving 32 teams in the host country, with the 16 winners reaching the group stage. A further 16 seeded teams would get a bye into the same group stage.25
“It means we continue with a normal World Cup for 32 teams, but 48 teams go to the party,” said Infantino, who further explained his reasoning thus: “Fifa’s idea is to develop football in the whole world, and the World Cup is the biggest event there is. It’s more than a competition, it’s a social event.”
Continents other than Europe may be in favour but critics would counter that the plan complicates rather than simplifies the finals as well as diluting the tournament and that it would put further strain on the host nation. Infantino’s solution could also technically entail 16 teams flying halfway round the world, depending where the finals are, to play one match before flying home again.
“They are ideas that are released to see if anyone has a better idea and see which one is the best,” said Infantino. He may discover that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
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