Comment: 48 teams in the WC cannot be a complete crisis
DOHA (VG) There was no medal, but Morocco’s semi-final was the success FIFA needed.
The World Cup expansion to 48 teams is heavily criticized, especially in Europe – the Europeans already dominate and have no great need to go from 13 to 16 teams (although it increases the chance of Norway participating in 2026).
As the weeks in Qatar draw to a close, there is reason to believe that European criticism will calm down somewhat – at least it should. Apart from a few big wins, the championship has shown that international national team football is more even than ever.
Well, no results in a single World Cup should determine the number of teams, but it is still a sign of the times that Africa got its first semi-finalist, three teams from Asia in the 8th part, that from Africa, the USA onwards, Canada did not in any way leave . , Saudi Arabia beat Argentina, Japan beat Germany and Spain.
Morocco disappeared in the quarter-finals of the African Championship last year, beaten by Egypt, who did not make it to the World Cup. Morocco went to the semi-finals of the World Cup, knocking out giants Belgium, Spain and Portugal and threatening France.
Of five teams that did not win a game, three are from Europe: Denmark, Serbia and Wales (plus Qatar and Canada).
A few days ago I was at a press conference with UEFA’s convening technical committee, headed by Jürgen Klinsmann, a collection of coaches who scrutinize matches and look for trends.
Asia representative Cha Du-ri, former World Cup player for South Korea, spoke with pride about the success of the Asian Confederation, three tiers further from the group stage (including Australia), the Saudi victory over Argentina, Australia who missed a great chance to equalize against the Argentines in a moment, Japan which ended on penalties against Croatia.
Africa representative Sunday Oliseh, former World Cup player for Nigeria, pointed out that all the African teams won at least one match, but was most concerned about the fact that all five had coaches from their own continent. In all years, it has mostly been older Europeans who have stood there, often ungrateful. This time they managed themselves, and they managed well.
It is not a big deal to think about expanding probably reinforces President Gianni Infantino’s position as an autocratic leader. More nations rejoice, more votes for Infantino, and there is good reason to believe that this was a significant reason for change.
That cannot, however, stand in the way of it being a fairer distribution, and fortunately it seems that next time there will be groups with four layers as well.
Africa has now secured nine places in 2026, Asia eight, while South America gets six and percentage-wise is the continent with the most.
The World Cup went from 16 nations in 1978 to 24 in 1982 (14 from Europe!) and 32 in 1998. 28 years later, 48 out of 211 member countries get to participate in the World Cup. 22.7 percent get to participate in a championship. Is it quite crisis?
A WC place is worth hundreds of millions. In any case, there is no reason for the European countries to continue to gorge themselves on this money, but it is perfectly fine to think that 48 layers is totally wrong, that 32 is the right one.
Then perhaps Europe could opt out in a couple of places and Africa and Asia could have their quota expanded?
Nobody has talked about that.
VG corrects: In this article it first stated that four of the African teams had African coaches. The truth is that all five had it. The error was corrected on 17 December at 22:50.