QuoteThe world cup is a cup competition, and even with pre-qualifying, they all get the right to make it that far.Originally Posted by mypost
It's a cup competition, and while a lot will fail to make the final rounds, they all get the right to make it that far.
The world cup is a cup competition, and even with pre-qualifying, they all get the right to make it that far.
There are currently 53 teams in UEFA world cup qualifying
13 World Cup Spots (this will be 14 spots for the European Championships as Poland & Ukraine are the Hosts)
Currently there are 8 qualifying groups of 6 with1 group of 5
Proposal for the Euro’s;
Take all teams who finish 5th or 6th (17 teams in total) and have a pre-qualifying competition running from July to December
Final Qualifying to have 7 groups of 6 (top 2 to qualify)
This will be the 9 top 4 finishers from the current qualifying plus 6 qualifiers form the pre-qualifying.
Pre-Qualifying to be 3 groups of 4 with 1 group of 5.
4 group winners to qualify for the final qualifying
4 runners up to be drawn in a 2 legged play-off for the final 2 spots
This would leave 11 international countries with potentially no competitive international football for 2 years until the next set of Pre-Qualifying takes place. To avoid this, a second tournament should be set up, with the first prize of a passage through to the final qualifying of the next tournament.
Advantages –
• A complete break from competitive international football for 6 months for teams competing in tournament finals, from the end of one tournament (normally mid/late July) to the start of the next qualifying (January the following year). This is possible due to playing fewer games by not having the need for a round of final play-offs.
• It produces a cleaner qualifying structure with no need for play-offs & the 2nd place table we currently have in operation.
• It should eliminate the 6-0 type hammerings that are routinely handed out to the smaller countries, by improving their competiveness.
• Increases the number of competitive games played by smaller countries and playing teams of similar ability should improve their competiveness.
• It continues to offer an immediate path to qualify for the current tournament while offering a secondary route for the following tournament.
Disadvantages –
• Potentially fewer games means potentially less income, although Holland would get 2 more games & any group winner from this qualifying would remain on 10 games. This really only effects any team who reach the play-offs.
• Less glamour games for the smaller nations may result in less income and there will be the added cost of playing more matches, the financial effects may have to be supported by UEFA/the bigger nations.
• By not playing better teams it can be argued that the smaller nations could stagnate and not develop, the proposal hopes that the competiveness of the pre-qualifying would help them develop but the opposite could be argued.
Virtually all cup competitions have pre-qualifying, the FA cup preliminary rounds start in August, no one suggests that Man Utd should play Gedling Miners Welfare (beaten 7-1 in last seasons extra-preliminary round by the mighty Westfields).
The important things are
1- to ensure teams can qualify for the same finals as the bigger teams in the same season, ie don't have a competition running this season for qualification for next seasons FA Cup.
2 - to continue to give smaller teams competive fixtures where they can develop and improve
3 - not to affect the finances of smaller countries in a negative way which would in turn make them less competitve.
Once these things are sorted I don't have any real issues with it, even if Ireland ended up in a pre-qualifying group, you still have the chance to progress.
I know that they reach the qualifying standard, my whole point was that the qualifying standards are uneven and unfair. Hypothetically, if Australia only had to beat New Zealand to end up at the WC they'd have met the qualifying standard as well, it doesn't make it right. Instead they have to playoff with the 5th placed South American team every second WC.
*had
Australia's moved to Asia now
Fair enough, it was just the general imbalance I was getting at.
Isn't the existing World Cup qualifiers called the "preliminaries"?
The FA Cup is open to everyone who submits an entry, and that includes Gedling Miners Welfare. They don't play a pre-season play-off with similiar sized clubs in order to make the August round. They have a game, they win it, they go straight to the next round, and so on until they lose. That's how it should be.
As I say, if you wanted, you could have a top 8 shootout for a month, or a fair competition involving everyone for 2 years. I know what most people would rather have.
Because club football is sadly ruled by the clubs/leagues with greatest wealth (and therefore best players regardless of what they actually produce through their own academies), and they can dictate that not only have they got a structural advantage in that they come in later on, but they also get more entrants than other nations.
International football is not the same, it is by nature more meritocratic and democratic. I personally believe that pre-qualifying in general is unfair, but it's also true that in club football the gap between Barcelona and Bohemians is (rightly or wrongly) significantly greater than that between Spain and Rep. Ireland. In fact, the same goes for most small to medium sized European countries, such as Croatia, Serbia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece etc - they generally have a better chance of success in international competition than club football.
endabob - a few comments on your well-structured post:
Do we really need less international football? I am of the view that we have too many club games and should cut down on the heavy Champions' League schedule to avoid player burnout instead. Internationals are rare enough as it is, coming once every few months. Why is international football apparently being seen as a burden on players, managers and fans?
Well pre-qualifying would have play-offs and such, under your proposal, but apparently that matters less.In any case, I am not necessarily opposed to play-offs; even when they screw your team over they provide a sense of excitement and uncertainty. I am not certain this would be an advantage personally.
See previous posts. How will playing similar teams all the time make them more competitive? The pre-qualifying games themselves might be closer than your typical 6-0 hammering but will not make them better prepared should they graduate from pre-qualifying. The only way for smaller teams to improve and really test themselves is by playing in the current seeded groups consistently. That way, the teams with potential will really feel the benefits, while those with less potential will at least be guaranteed a shot at a famous result during their 'golden generations'.
See above.
It doesn't offer an immediate path; teams have to go through two sets of qualifiers.
I thionk as far as the FA Cup is concerned the logistics are different to World Cup qualifying. In order to have complete equality in the FA Cup, Manchester United would have to play something like 15 extra games, which would be impossible with their schedule. In the World Cups and European Championships, it is a mere two, one home, one away. Obviously, there is a difference there. I personally just don't see how teams can complain about having to play two games against a 'minnow' in one whole qualifying campaign (that's one per year, if you will). The supposed drawbacks for the big boys of having 'minnows' in qualifying are easily outweighed by the benefits for most of the other 50-odd nations.
Incidentally, as far as the debate about teams from 'weaker' continents taking part in the World Cup is concerned, FIFA does operate a weighting system deciding the number of entrants that a continent may send to the finals, based on their performances in World Cups. In other words, if a continent has a particularly bad finals, while another does well, a swing of one finals entrant to the better-performing conferderation may typically occur. I personally think that the European play-off losers would be better than some of the qualifiers from other continents but from an objective point of view the system seems fair enough to me.
Last edited by Cymro; 18/06/2009 at 2:20 PM.
"Life is like a hair on a toilet seat. Sooner or later you are bound to get pi$$ed off."
"In this league, a draw is sometimes as good as a win" - Steve Morison
As a slight tangent, last I looked, FIFA ranked international teams from different continents using a multiplier- a win in CONCACAF was worth 0.90 of one in Europe, I think. But obviously CONCACAF teams don't match that when they actually get to play Europeans at the World Cup finals.
Has this actually happened (ie, did Europe's or South America's representation increase from 1994 to now based on winning all the tournaments since then)?In other words, if a continent has a particularly bad finals, while another does well, a swing of one finals entrant to the better-performing conferderation may typically occur. I personally think that the European play-off losers would be better than some of the qualifiers from other continents but from an objective point of view the system seems fair enough to me.
Poor old Manchester United and their schedule
I think there were 14 rounds in last season's FA Cup, ie eight before the big boys joined. In next season's, Scunthorpe United (as the lowest ranked side getting exemption to the last 64) aren't necessarily going to play (m)any more games than Gedling- they're just pulling that rank because they're seven or eight steps higher in the Pyramid
I'd make ManU and co. start in the first round proper. If that puts the kibosh on any lucrative friendlies in Hong Kong or Los Angeles, tough...
The gap between Barcelona and Bohemians is significantly less than that between Spain and Andorra though
By this logic Rochdale should not be playing against the likes of Barnet, Aldershot and Lincoln in League Two because the 'only way for smaller teams [like Rochdale] to improve and really test themselves is by playing...' the likes of Manchester United!
(Good debate this, a rarity in internet forums these days.)
Completely against all attempts to "pre-qualify" for the WC and EC.
You can guarantee that if such an idea ever was given the go-ahead, it wouldn't be long before higher teams would be made pre-qualify as well.
As for the idea that certain small state populations should pre-qualifyWhat's your suggestion if they improve well enough to be 5th seeds in the group? It's not long ago since Greece and Turkey routinely finished bottom of their groups.
This is international football, not the CL, and everyone's invited. Those countries that are 6th seeds in the group reflects where they stand in international football today, and gives them the incentive to improve in the future.
Very good point about Turkey there
KOH
Firstly Thanks Cymro for the detailed reply, I had meant to reply earlier but I’ve only been able to pop in and out of here with work continuing to get in the way!
I think we could do with a proper break in competitive international football and less games like England v Andorra which revenue aside really benefit no one.
I would use the 6 month gap as a window to give teams’ time to play friendly or 2 to blood new players for the next set of qualifiers. Also whether we like it or not (and personally I don’t) Champions league is the cash cow for so many clubs & UEFA that it’s going nowhere & its format is not going to be altered a great deal. I don’t think International football is a burden on fans, but I think fans want competition not a cake walk.
I get your point with regard to still having play-offs but with uneven numbers it’s difficult to avoid some form of play-off, the current system of top 8 runners up from 9 groups is very messy imho & at least pre-qualifying would give rise to a more structured final qualifying set up.
I accept there are arguments for letting weaker teams “learn” by playing stronger teams but I don’t agree with it, I think they are more likely to become demoralised by the gulf in class, thus my example of letting Man Utd play Gedling Miners Welfare. In reality Utd would put out a youth/reserve side and still cruise through, the “prestige” of international football and the fact that 80quid tickets are being sold wouldn’t allow England to play their B team against Andorra for example. International football has a duty to improve the weaker nations, letting them get hammered 3 or 4 times a year does nothing to help them.
Although I use the wording Immediate, what I am getting at is avoiding a situation where teams play in a qualifying tournament for 2014 while 2010 is going on, it happens in other sports where there is a big gulf in class, Rugby League & 7’s Rugby Union or example have a 2 tier (or 3 tiers) world cup which is the kind of thing you want to avoid.
Pre-qualifying happens in virtually every confederation except UEFA & South America and as Europe continues to break up and smaller nations join (I’m thinking of Georgia’s potential split & a couple of others) I think pre-qualifying is going to become a must, it will either be that or as someone else suggested we instigate stricter rules on where Europe begins but as more countries means more political muscle within FIFA I can’t see UEFA turning its back on anyone.
Granted, but that wasn't the point I was making. The point was mainly that club football simply works differently to internationals due to the balance of power being held by clubs with lots of money, thus being nationally speaking a less 'fair' form of the game than international football. Please also bear in mind that I have never expressed agreement with this as a method of governance. Ideally for me the same qualification system that applies with internationals would apply with European cloub competitions, but such a schedule would play havoc with domestic club competition.
Furthermore, the comparison isn't really a fair one. Bohemians aren't the lowest of the low in club football; Andorra are in internationals. For a fair comparison you might see the Andorran club champions who have to win three ties to get a crack at the big boys under the new CL rules.
You aren't seriously comparing a dmoestic league competition to the World Cup and European championships are you? As I've shown before, league competitions allow much more opportunity for aspiring teams than the proposed 'pre-qualifying' system would. You have 3 promotions from League Two each year. This is vastly different from maybe one every four years as in the pre-qualifying (two years if only one competition i.e. WC or EC chose pre-qualifying).
Furthermore, look at the other opportunities English league two clubs have to test themselves competitively against higher standard teams:
FA Cup
Carling Cup
Football League trophy
etc.
All held every season.
For me the key thing in this regard with pre-qualifying is that a small team with a decent side could actually miss out on their best years (27-31 years old) because results went against them in pre-qualifying for a couple of campaigns. This team might actually have done fairly well in the qualifiers proper, but would be denied the chance under a system of pre-qualifying.
endabob/Gather Round - I'll reply to you a bit later if you don't mind. Thanks for your replies though.
"Life is like a hair on a toilet seat. Sooner or later you are bound to get pi$$ed off."
"In this league, a draw is sometimes as good as a win" - Steve Morison
I'd imagine the scorelines would be similar.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks