soccer

FIFA risks quality of World Cup to bring more teams to party

7 Comments
By ROB HARRIS

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7 Comments
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Like the modern Olympic Games and the IOC, FIFA is just about the money, not football. Sponsorship, TV rights, increasing revenue are their focus, their overpaid officials keen to expand their dominion, just like the Lords of the Rings.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Groups of 3 result in fixed matches. For example, when both teams playing the final match know that a draw is good enough for both to go through, what do you think the final result will be?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@Striker

They're discussing banning draws for the whole tournament. Games that end with scores level will go to penalties. Don't like it, but it's better than the alternative : (

1 ( +1 / -0 )

@lucabrasi

Interesting solution... might solve some issues but introduce more. For example, a weaker team can just defend 11 men behind the ball and if they survive 90 minutes they have a very good shot of winning via penalties. Normally these teams basically could only hope for a draw but now they'd have a pretty decent chance of winning, which will only reinforce those tactics and result in more boring games.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

And there will be additional places for under-represented continents like Africa, which only has five slots in Russia in 2018 while Europe will have 14 finalists despite being similar-sized confederations.

Huh? Since when does the 'size of the confederation' matter?! Half of the top 50 football nations (according to fifa's own rankings) are from Europe, that's the reason why they get 14 spots. A WC with Botswana, Uganda, Zambia, Sudan etc and only 4-5 euro nations would not be a WC.

@lucabrasi and striker, agree. Imo, draws are a natural part of football, penalty shoot outs in pool games aren't. Another silly alternative to attract/please new markets.

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Groups of 3 teams? What is going to happen if each team wins and loses both matches 1-0 or 0-1? Are they going to toss coins?

0 ( +0 / -0 )

@Striker and goldorak

Yeah, I'm not defending the FIFA idea for a moment. Penalties are a dismal solution to a stalemate. But they would reduce boredom. If Striker's right and a team might play with eleven behind the ball in the hope of a penalty-win, that's still better than a game in which both teams are playing for a draw.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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