I don't see why the Iceland fa chief was quoted in that WSC article, Iceland are not minnows when it comes to the FIFA rankings. Iceland should be passing Ireland by, in the FIFA ranking table, on there way up on Tuesday night.
A good place to start, is to read the arguments for weeding out the few minnows then you might acknowledge there exists a few
Vast majority of UEFA competitions already have elements of pre-qualifying.
2 which are open to all, are u21 and senior men.
With a population of over 1/2m and one of the richest countries in Europe, Luxembourg would need to be hit with a big stick if they lost a playoff to the likes of San Marino, Andorra, or Gibraltar.
By my reckoning, 10 groups of 5 would have meant say the bottom 4 teams playing-off or competing in pre-qualifying group for 2 places.
With Gibraltar in there, that means bottom 5 competing in pre-qualifiers for 2 places.
This proposal for EURO 2016 is a radical departure from the standard formats of previous competitions.
12 groups of 4, cuts out 5 teams and at the very least you'd involve the bottom 7 teams in a pre-qualifer event for 2 places or the bottom 10 teams if you were to have pre-qualifier playoffs. This makes it a few degrees more ruthless and less palatable.
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