A Modest Proposal To Make A 48-Team World Cup Actually Work: A VICE Sports Conversation

It's possible we will get a new format for the World Cup. Expanding the tournament has been bandied about for some time now, but news today makes it seem closer to a reality. Let's figure out what it all means.

Sean: So Gianni Infantino just threw his support behind a 48-team World Cup, again. We all know more is better, so this is outstanding, yes? More teams, more games—bracket might actually fit on Ronaldo's abs now.

Aaron: The news today, as tweeted by AFP, is that he wants the group stage to be 16 groups of three teams, as opposed to the current format of eight groups of four teams. He didn't specify, though, how many teams from each group would advance to the knockout rounds. If it's one team from each group, then the number of overall games in the tournament won't change; we'd go straight to a 16-team knockout round after the group stage as we currently do. But, if two teams from each group of three advance, there would be a Round of 32 knockout stage, and the number of overall games would increase to 80, which would be good for FIFA's wallets, I suppose. (There are, of course, other possibilities, involving byes and things of that nature, but those are less likely.)

There are concerns about each of these options. If only one team from each group advances, that means two-thirds of the teams will be going home after only two games. Practically speaking, though, a whole bunch of teams would lose any realistic hopes of advancing after one game. It would essentially make every game for the entire tournament must-win. You could spin that as "exciting," but I'd say it's more unfair for a tournament that takes place every four years and takes years to qualify for.

Meanwhile, if two teams from each group advance, then we have the opposite problem: the group stage would be rendered pointless. It would be a more extreme version of the current format where you can pretty much eyeball who is going to advance from most of the groups when they're drawn. It would also incentivize incredibly boring soccer, since two draws would probably get you through.

Sean: The group stage might be rendered pointless, but teams are still advancing through, right? So, even if the first round of games were less than inspiring, we get more soccer, and more teams advancing and generating excitement that they could actually Do This. And maybe the group stage becomes like the first round of the NCAA tournament, where everyone is rooting for the 15 seed to beat Duke?

Aaron: Maybe, but I think we need to take a step back. The World Cup isn't like the NCAA tournament, which happens every year and that's fine and means we are cool with lots of really bad games in pursuit of those few memorable ones. The World Cup isn't supposed to have throwaway rounds or matches (in theory). Even the current format isn't all that great; the group stages are often pretty dull, because half the teams advance which incentivizes conservative play. 2014 had one of the best group stages in the tournament's history and there were still a dozen or so dreadful games.

Sean: So what's wrong with making it just a little bit duller, then, if the upshot is some crazy-ass team like Norway advancing that otherwise wouldn't have even been in?

Aaron: I don't understand what end that serves, artificially adjusting the format to entice bad teams to advance. Screwing with the format so it's easy for a bad team to qualify in a larger tournament and then get lucky is the exact opposite of what the World Cup should be about.

Look, I get what Johnny is going for here: he wants more countries involved so ratings go up as more countries care and they can sell more games to more advertisers. More, more, more. Is this a cheap ploy to get China and India—something like 40 percent of the world's population—involved in the World Cup? Probably! But more needs to come with a plan for how to retain quality, which is what I don't see here yet, and may be the opposite of what FIFA wants.

Sean: This, I think gets to the heart of the matter: do we trust FIFA not to fuck this up six ways to Sunday?

Aaron: Exactly. We don't, because why should we? What have they not fucked up?

Sean: OK, so, in another universe, we are in charge of this hypothetical Brave New World Cup. How do we not fuck it up?

Aaron: I'm less concerned about the format of the tournament itself than the teams that make it in the first place. Format matters less if all of the teams are competitive. So that's the big question: how do you tweak qualification in a way that gets the 48 best teams in? I don't think you can. I think it has to come with a top-down reconfiguration of the entire qualifying system.

There's really no reason for World Cup qualification to be so geographically limited anymore. Many of the best players already jet across the world for qualifications. So many players for, say, South American qualification, fly from their clubs in Europe back to South America for a week to play two qualifiers, then fly the 10 hours back to play for their club that weekend.

Sean: Well that's a whole can of mixed metaphors/worms. How would you structure qualifying, then?

Aaron: Here is my BIG PROPOSAL that I have thought about for five seconds: combine confederations. CONCACAF merges with CONMEBOL, UEFA with CAF, and Asia with Oceania. So you go from six qualifying regions to three, which means the 48 teams that qualify are more likely to be the best teams in the world rather than stacked teams from powerhouse regions and minnows from others.

Travel would be more expensive and some federations can't afford it, but this is where we really get nuts: FIFA would start using their billions of dollars in reserves and increased revenue from 48 team World Cups to subsidize that travel. (These funds would be tremendously vulnerable to laundering and corruption and whatnot, but, what FIFA funds aren't?)

Sean: Would each region get the same number of qualification spots? Do you think Europe/Africa/The Americas would be salty about that?

Aaron: I think you'd basically try and keep the same ratios we have now (again, this is probably in direct contrast with FIFA's actual reason for expanding the tournament, which is to get more Asian teams involved). So let's say Europe/Africa would get 28, the Americas get 14, Asia/Oceania get six, which is roughly the same ratio of spots they currently get in the 32 team formats. It's not perfect, but I think it's better than the current plan.

Sean: What are the chances FIFA actually does this?

Aaron: To accurately reflect these odds, I would have to invent a number between zero and zero. Let's call it uberzero. There's an uberzero chance FIFA does this. Mostly because it would require an unbelievable amount of political will to fuck with a system that currently makes an awful lot of awful people awful rich. It's not going to happen. They're going to try and jam a 48-team format into the current system in an unfathomably stupid way.

Sean: Because FIFA is bad?

Aaron: Because FIFA is bad.