FIFA World Cup expansion - now with added OFC qualification!

Though the quality in teams might be wider so unlikely to eventuate?

This seems pretty good to me.  For our generation and maybe the next we will remember that we were sometimes just good enough to get into the WC, and are "guaranteed" a spot because of the changes, but for the next generation, we compete in the WC every 4 years.

Hopefully that's motivation for more kids to shoot for the AW's.  Also media attention around a WC will be higher, hopefully more get interested and the lows between WC's aren't as low as it is now.

Hopefully us being sa regular WC side will get us more friendlies too.  

*shrug* anyone's guess what actually happens, I'm chuffed we get to see more AW's games in the WC.

Hopefully the carrot of just having to topple us will fire up so Island teams too and bring the OFC up in quality.

And they should build us a new small 15,000 capacity boutique stadium with a roof over the stands and local craft beer on tap

Hudson's views. By 2026 qualifying he will no doubt be well gone.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/nz-teams/882...

Good. In fact very good.

There will be more pressure on the Oceania games to determine a winner./qualifier. Means that our O/S boys will be there for all of them.

Plus if we qualify, we get 2 games against good opposition and I suggest a better chance to get into the knockout stage.

Good for our coffers, that is automatic, and likely we will have more decent friendlies happening. You know you are going to the world cup, you have to prepare well for it.

Way way way better for the sport in NZ to have us at the World Cup than not.

If I was a player I'd be very happy with the prospect of being at the world Cup under this system then with the current slim chance set up.

I want it to develop too, but here there's always the talk about AFC spliting like it could happen and it just won't. Now that OFC will be granted a full place at every WC I don't think the Islands would like to get into the AFC, even if it means having meaningul matches

If Oceania gets a guaranteed spot surely Australia won't be able to move back quick enough. Or would they not be allowed to move again?

or, the more realistic scenario - Spain 2 Australia 0 , Spain 5 NZ 0 .......... then NZ 0 Australia 4

Wow, much excite, etc

I totally agree with you. 

OK its great NZ gets to every WC by beating the Island nations. But the problem is no one, not the fans, nor the media nor the players are interested in Aw's vs some island atoll. But if you get NZ into the Asian playoffs its a completely different ball game. If Asia get 8 WC slots and if then  NZ went into their playoffs. Two pools of 6 teams....4 from each pool qualify. The AW's get 10 games to qualify.....5  of them at home. THis would be the best outcome.....if we couldn't make it out of Asia then we don't deserve to be at the WC. The fans and media get proper games to follow and it would be fantastic for the development of the game in NZ. Plus with the four yearly WC income NZF could easily afford an Asia WC qualifier pathway.

If we get to the WC straight out of Oceania nothing changes except we get two WC games every four years and still nothing at home......it doesn't change much except we lose the home and away qualifier we have now.

With 8.5 spots for Asia, it's pretty hard to see Aus missing out.  That, plus the Asian Cup makes it pretty unlikely they would want to shift.

I know the players, and NZF would disagree, but I would honestly prefer us get a number of meaningful, competitive qualification games at home every four years and miss out on the World Cup than have us auto qualify, play two games and go home due to a lack of any worthwhile lead up.

Exactly

I think we all agree that the Bahrain night in Wellington was super special....hard to imagine that a 2025 WC playoff against New Caledonia that gets us to the 2026 WC would generate much more than a yawn

But with a german perspective: NZ ll compete against a team of the first 16 and a team which is between 16-32 and even the second of the group ll come in the next round. So the possibility that you ve two games against really good teams is quite high and in one game you can also win (sometimes) against a better team. Furthermore the participating nations will get a lot of money instead of losing against South American 5th with one home game. Yes New Caledonia and probably in the next years Papua Newguinea are not the best opponents but NZ at the world cup ll have a nice impact on the entire NZ football.

I have an idea...Let's have a World Cup Finals involving all 210 countries and territories able to participate and that way, no one is left out of cashing in on the Greed of Fifa.

I don't see Australia shifting to Oceania but they do have some work ahead of them to stay up. They are currently ranked 4th of Asian teams and now other Asian countries are starting to throw more money into football they will have to fight to stay in the top of the rankings.

http://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/ranking-tab...

Aussie won't rejoin Oceania as it will count them out of the ACL. 

If the ACL was by the Asian Confederation expanded to include Oceania, it would solve every problem for everyone in regards to the A League, the ACL, Phoenix issues, our local World Club championship issues - everything!

Some good questions raised here.

There are lots of pluses and minuses regarding both scenarios - qualifying for the revamped World Cup Finals through Oceania, or through joining Asian qualifying after progressing from an initial Oceania group.

Things though have just got more complicated recently with the Asian Confederation combining World Cup qualifying games with Asian Cup qualifiers.

Under the new format, most of the smaller Asian countries will play only two competitive matches every four years (in a preliminary round).  Yes, two games every four years...

So most Oceania members would not be in favour of Oceania fully joining the AFC if that is what resulted.

Also, AFC just aren't going to be interested in admitting Oceania nations to AFC qualifying any time soon, having just introduced major changes to their qualifying formats recently. Any consideration of Oceania being admitted to AFC qualifying would be many years in the future, if at all...

The Asian Cup for 2019 has been expanded to 24 teams and for the first time, all AFC members were able to enter qualifying (previously only the top 20 teams in AFC competed in qualifying for ten or eleven spots, the remaining spots being claimed by the hosts, the winners of the previous two AFC Challenge Cups and the top three teams at the previous Asian Cup).

New AFC World Cup and Asian Cup qualifying format (combined):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

First two rounds double as World Cup qualification:

Round One: Teams ranked 35–46 in Asia play home-and-away over two legs. The six winners advanced to the second round.

Round Two:

A total of 40 teams (teams ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) are divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches.

• The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification as well as qualify for the AFC Asian Cup finals.
• The next 16 highest ranked teams (the remaining four group runners-up, the eight third-placed teams and the four best group fourth-placed teams) advance directly to the third round of Asian Cup qualification.
• The remaining 12 teams enter the play-off round to contest the remaining eight spots in the third round of Asian Cup qualification

It would of course be exciting for the All Whites to play in AFC qualifying under this format.

To give some idea of how likely or not it would be that the All Whites could progress through AFC World Cup qualifying to the third round, here are the teams who have already qualified for the third round and directly go to the Asian Cup Finals in 2019:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

NZ would have to be in a weaker Round Two group to have a good chance - but you'd think it wouldn't be so hard to make the next round from some of those groups.

Second Round tables:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_AFC_Asian_Cup_q...

I think NZ would struggle to make it out of the Third Round to progress to the World Cup Finals under the current 32 team format of the next two World Cups if you look at the current Third Round tables (two groups of six):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup_...

We'd be lucky to take third place in a group and make the AFC play-off.

However, an increased 48 team World Cup Finals with a rumoured 8 places for AFC teams changes things in our favour with four teams from each Third Round Group progressing directly to the Finals.

And........ no one is handing out an AFC membership to NZ and FIFA are changing the WC format, so easy choice isn't it?

I was right about the FIFA World Cup being expanded but I would rather have 40 teams than 48. 8 groups of 5 teams.

FIFA last week announced its proposed allocation of finals slots for each Confederation at the future 46 team World Cup, including a guaranteed place for Oceania. The final decision will be made next month. Not only will Oceania get one guaranteed qualifier, but the second best Oceania team in qualifying will go into a final play-off round with five other sides, from which two will qualify:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/football/world-game/9...

"The future looks all right for the All Whites after Fifa announced its proposed slot allocation for the expanded 48-team World Cup, including an automatic place for Oceania, 16 places for Europe - up from 13 - and a six-team inter-zonal playoff tournament for two more spots.

The proposals will be submitted to the Fifa Council at its next full meeting in Bahrain in May for a final decision, Fifa said on Thursday (Friday NZ Time)....

Under the proposal, made by the Fifa Bureau, for the enlarged tournament beginning in 2026, Europe would get 16 direct places, Africa nine, Asia eight, South America six, Concacaf six and Oceania one, totalling 46 teams.

In the most innovative part of the proposal, the two remaining places would be decided by a six-team playoff tournament which would take place in the World Cup host nation, possibly in the November before the finals, Fifa said.

That tournament would include one team from each confederation, except UEFA, and an extra one from the continent of the host country."

Too many games though... can't feasibly have 5 or 6 team pools with this many teams... stretches the tournament out far too long

Where do you get 8 days longer from?

I can't see how it would take any longer than the current format at all?

But we're not going to get the Bahrain situation again, that's the thing. It was a massively fortunate set of circumstances. 

I'd prefer to see us actually playing at world cup finals every four years, rather than hoping for a miracle set of circumstances in qualifying every 4 years, which so far has only happened twice, 28 years apart...

These were some reasons I put in a different thread back in Jan, as to why I think this is actually a good idea;

- Changes to number of games are minimal, but where they have changed, they offer benefits. A team making the top four will still play 7 games, like before. The worst teams at the tournament will now only play 2 games, rather than 3, so the overall quality of fixtures in general will be higher than if they had gone with a 4 or 5 team group format, without changing the knockout stages.

- The tournament will be the same length of time, 32 days. This is crucial. Lengthening would have been disastrous in my opinion.

- A key improvement on previous formats is the shortening of the initial group stage. This was the only time my excitement would wane, it always seemed a few days too long before we got into knock-outs for me, even if the final group games are exciting. It's that middle game that pads it out.

- If any team sport can support a tournament of this size, it is football. The broad competitiveness of world football is basically unmatched by any other team sport. Looking at the current rankings, places 40 - 48 are: Paraguay, Sweden, Greece, Czech Republic, Serbia, Japan, Denmark, Australia, Congo. Granted that Congo are hardly a force, but the other teams there are good teams with big players and big followings. Nearly all of those teams would reasonably expect to make the knock-out stages, despite being ranked as the worst of the current top 48!

The decision makers have put the desire for profits - more games mean more  ticket sales and TV money ---ahead of any concerns for the integrity of the tournament itself.Obviously politics played a part after series of scandals rocked  FIFA. 

It may give more fans a cheap hit with more teams qualifying , but how satisfying will it be for those fans to see their teams humiliated by far superior teams  in front of a global audience. Bigger is not always better.

But the qualifiers won't be determined by their FIFA ranking.

This is the actual proposal finalized by FIFA last month to be put before the FIFA Congress next month for approval:

"Under the proposal, made by the Fifa Bureau, for the enlarged tournament beginning in 2026, Europe would get 16 direct places, Africa nine, Asia eight, South America six, Concacaf six and Oceania one, totalling 46 teams."

The problem as I see it is that Asia and CONCACAF get too many places.

Nine from Asia is ludicrous. Currently the teams who look set to qualify directly from Asia this time are Iran, South Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia with Australia and Uzbekisatan looking like they'll play eachother in the play-off spot to determine the inter-continental contender.

The four current best teams from Asia deserve a place in the World Cup (Iran, South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia) and then you're looking at the winner of the likely Australia v Uzbekisatan play-off for fifth best.

After that, there's no way that the next four best deserve a place - you're looking at Syria, China, UAE and Iraq, all pretty mediocre sides.

China: one win, two draws, four losses in the latest qualifying stage.

Iraq: one win, one draw, five losses.

Africa are stronger than Asia in depth and arguably deserve more than their current five qualifying spots.

The current top ten in African qualifying are: DR Congo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Egypt (all in top place in their group for the one qualifying spot from each of five final round groups), followed by Tunisia, Cameroon, South Africa, Morocco, Uganda. 

Seven or eight spots from Africa could be justified.

Six from South America seems good - even now in the 32 team finals format, six would be justified considering the strength of South American sides.

On current CONCACAF qualifying, the top six are Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, USA, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago (in that order).

The top four deserve direct entry - but we can do without Honduras (1 W, 1 D, 2 L; negative five goal difference) and Trinidad and Tobago (1 W, 0 D, 3 L; negative four goal difference)

16 from Europe seems right too.

I would have: 16 from Europe, six from South America, four from CONCACAF, five from Asia, seven from Africa, one from Oceania.

Plus one team from the new FIFA proposal for a final play-off round for one team from each Confederation (except Europe).

Which would make 40 qualifiers to play in ten groups of four.

Once you get to the finals, you want at least three games guaranteed from a four team group.

NZ just playing two games wouldn't be as good.  

African teams were shark for many years, the last decent performance by an african team was Cameroon back in 1990.

We have a 1 in 3 shot at drawing the (5th?) best Asian team, and 1 in 3 of drawing the 4th Concacaf team, which should usually be in our reach. So 2 in 3 where it's at worst 70/30 against

Ghana lost on penaltis to Uruguay in quarterfinals in 2010, that was pretty decent

I disagree, I feel like both CAF and AFC are becoming stronger as confederations. I look at teams like Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ivory Coast as some big names who can do damage to European and South American Sides at World Cups. 

Ghana in 2010 vs Uruguay was a cracker. They were cheated out of that, which was soo unfortunate. 

That was the Suarez handball right?

Yes. Before biting became mainstream.

I realise that... was just using the rankings to make the point that football is an extremely competitive sport, meaning the worst teams in the top 48 are still very very good sides.

I'm still in shock after noticing that Holland are now #32 in the FIFA rankings.

(I'm half Dutch)

From World Cup semi-finalist in 2014 to fourth in their current qualifying group in 2017....

And Serbia are now only 44 after being 10th when the All Whites beat them in 2010.

DR Congo are currently one of the best teams in Africa - their football is well-financed due to all the "blood diamond" money which makes their club side TP Mazembe" the wealthiest in Africa (annual revenue of 14 million Euros) and regular African club champions (made the final of the 2010 FIFA Club world Cup after beating the South American champs in the semi).

DR Congo are currently well-placed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

I am a dutch supporter... grandfather came here from Holland, lots of family over there, love the place, love the people. 

Very disappointed with how things are currently going for the national team!

I just don't think this will happen like that. I mean there's always a chance in any format with any teams - lowly Brazil copped an embarrassing hiding last time ;)

But football is so strong, the top 48 teams, and more, are all pretty damn good. It's pretty common for teams ranked 40 or below to qualify for world cups currently and make very good accounts of themselves. 

Plus the reduction of group stage games means there is one less game for the worst of the worst to play in, the poorest sides get trimmed pretty quickly compared to the current formats. 

I won't seriously be expecting any lop-sided hidings with the new format, even with all these teams. There's always games at every world cup where someone might cop 5 or 6, but there won't be any silly 12 nils etc.