Having just delivered the most exciting group stage ever seen at a World Cup, FIFA now faces the prospect of ripping it all up.
, there is a risk of many ‘dead’ matches — for example if the last group game was between two teams who had already won one each and were therefore already qualified — or contrived results.Article content
FIFA conceded earlier this year they were concerned about the possibility of contrived results where two teams could engineer a positive result for both, that would eliminate the third group team not playing.The 2026 format has the 48 teams reduced to 32 after the group phase and then the tournament becomes a knockout affair.
Alternative formats are now on the table, with the FIFA Council, the organization’s all-powerful cabinet, to decide next year. They are, according to FIFA’s head of global football development Arsene Wenger, 12 groups of four teams, with the best third-placed teams advancing with the top two, or another option to split theinto two separate halves of 24, each featuring six groups of four teams. The winner of each half would meet in the final.Article content
Given how dramatic and exciting some of the four-team groups were concluded in Qatar, that seems a more viable proposition.
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