World Cup to 46 Teams!

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Former FIFA Development Officer Howard McIntosh has joined the chorus of those applauding the expansion of the FIFA World Cup to 48 teams, up from 32.

Though the new proposal will not come into effect until the 2026 edition, the Jamaican gave FIFA the thumbs up on the new move, saluting the game's governing body for a well-thought-out structure, even in its embryonic state.

FIFA's executive council voted last week to increase the number of teams by 50 per cent, winning praise for making the massive structural adjustment without having to add to the 32-day duration of its global showpiece.

Also, the teams going to the final will still play seven games in a clearly number-crunching master stroke by the FIFA thinkers. But there will be more matches, moving to 80 from 64.

As it stands, the proposal will see 16 groups of three teams, with the top two advancing to a knockout round of 32, then a round of 16, then the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and then the final.

On the format, I think FIFA has done an excellent job at looking at all the possibilities, all the options, and I think they came up with five options regarding the expansion.

What is proposed now is that you will have 16 zones of three teams, with two teams advancing, giving everybody going to the World Cup a minimum of two games.

The format they have developed does not increase the number of games as you still have to play seven games to win the World Cup. So that shows that a tremendous amount of thought has gone into it and this might be the best approach anyone could take in accommodating everybody, and, of course, you always have to look at television; and I know that television consideration would have been factored in greatly with regards to the format, McIntosh said shortly after FIFA's announcement.

With more slots expected to be allocated to all of FIFA's six confederations UEFA, CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, CAF, AFC, OFC many countries perennially on the fringe of qualification can now dream.

And nations in the Caribbean, like Jamaica, can salivate at the possibilities that increased access would bring.

The obvious and the immediate advantage is that more World Cup places will be made available, which hopefully will mean the possibility of more spots for teams from the region, said McIntosh.

The actual confederation places have not been determined yet, but the devil then is going to be in the details, because depending on the final structure on how one qualifies for the World Cup, that will determine how much of an opportunity and an advantage it (more spots) will be, he said.

The new FIFA move is expected to bring broad-based benefits including financial inflows to member associations and confederations, big and small.

On the question of financial gains to the Caribbean, I think this time around the FIFA president and the executive council spent a lot of time getting analyses and comparative studies done looking at revenues, the expenses and the savings.

The fact that you are going to have more games would mean additional television revenues. I think the FIFA president has been consistent in ensuring and living up to his promise of getting more money in the MAs (member associations) and the confederations, so I would expect that a lot of the financial benefits would flow through to the member associations and also to the confederations, said McIntosh, a banker by trade.

But while CONCACAF is expected to benefit from the bounty of the additional 16 places, the Caribbean is reminded that it must improve its standard if it hopes to take advantage.

As it relates to the Caribbean, we now want to see the proposed Caribbean Professional League being funded, and I hope that is one of the benefits and that’s one of the things that the president (Gianni Infantino) committed to earlier.

Part of what must happen in the region is that football must be played at the highest level throughout, and one of those things is to have this league, which will be expensive because of the geography of the Caribbean, but it’s a necessity in improving the game in the individual territory, to improve the players throughout the region and to continue to expose players at the highest level on an ongoing basis and providing proper opportunities for them in being paid, McIntosh told the Jamaica Observer.

McIntosh, a former chairman of the Jamaica Football Federation Technical and Development Committee, said based on speculative figures, CONCACAF could get as many as three additional spots in the bonanza, up from the current three-and-half.

Sixteen additional spots and that's a significant increase, and I think all of the confederations will be happy for that as there are many countries in the confederations that are right there on the margin of qualifying.

I think it's a good number for CONCACAF, who now has three-and-half spots, and the hope is that they will go to six-and-half spots, which would be three additional spots, and I know that the performance over the years could merit that, he said.

As FIFA works through the details in the months to come, and CONCACAF having to possibly change its qualification format, McIntosh hopes that any new structure could be crafted to guarantee qualification for at least one Caribbean team.

My way of thinking, and I know that they are looking at the different combinations now, but I think one possible combination on board in the Caribbean that could be looked at is trying to determine how the Caribbean get at least one spot guaranteed in this whole mix, because this is part of the way of ensuring financial and technical commitment and to get everybody on board this tremendous goal (of qualifying), which few Caribbean nations have achieved thus far, but critically, want to achieve, but the hurdles are very high, he noted.