World Cup Qualification

Hello, apologies for going silent over the last month but I've been busy with other things going on. However, this time has enabled me to think up several more topics and November was certainly an eventful month, particularly in international football! Much has been made of the 'Hand of Frog' involving squeaky clean Thierry Henry who once launched a tirade at Barcelona for cheating (would you believe it?), but to be honest I'm pretty bored with that incident and it would appear everyone apart from Ireland would agree.Instead, I would like to investigate the World Cup qualification process (well, the European part anyway).

I think there are a number of issues which need resolving or at least improving for the better in the near future. For me there would appear to be flaws throughout - starting at the number of games and strength of the teams in the group stage through to the seeding of the playoffs, the use of extra time for second legs (something Giovanni Trapattoni alluded to in his post-game press conference) and lastly the seeding of qualified teams for the tournament itself.

The current way that the groups are drawn for qualification is that based on their world rankings and recent performances, teams are split into 6 pots with the strongest being Pot A and the weakest being Pot F. One team is drawn from each pot so that there are 9 groups of 6 (with one smaller group of 5 as there is one less team in Pot F than the other pots. This means that most countries play 10 games in qualification in the group stage. The first placed team in each group qualifies automatically for the World Cup Finals and the best 8 2nd placed teams (take from their results against the rest of the top 5 teams in their group) to allow for the single 5-team group go into the playoffs.

The playoff teams are then seeded into Pot 1 (stronger) and Pot 2 (weaker) depending on their ranking, and then for each of the 4 games one team from Pot 1 meets a team from Pot 2 with the winning team over 2 legs progressing to the World Cup Finals. Away goals come into effect in the playoffs and if the score is equal on aggregate and unable to be separated by away goals at the end of extra time in the second leg, the tie is decided on penalties.

Once the qualification process is complete, yet another seeding process occurs for the World Cup Finals Group Stage. The top 5 placed European teams in the rankings, plus two from South America (usually Brazil and Argentina) and the hosts (South Africa) are placed in the top pot (Pot 1). Pot 2 consists of 5 teams from the AFC, 3 teams from CONCACAF and one team from the OFC. Pot 3 has 5 teams from CAF and 3 teams from CONMEBOL, leaving the remaining UEFA nations in Pot 4.

The first issue I have is with regards to the make-up of the original

qualification groups. Players and coaches alike are constantly complaining of fixture congestion and the strain it puts on a player. If you look at the teams in Pots D, E and F, only Slovakia, have qualified for a World Cup Finals in the last 12 years (and even that was just this campaign), so surely it stands to reason that less of these teams should be playing the likes of Spain, Italy, England, Germany and France in pointless qualification games where there is only likely to be one outcome? International Football has suffered at the hands of the domestic game over recent years, particularly in Europe where people would much rather see Manchester United V Chelsea than Andorra V England on a Saturday afternoon. Also, if you are an Andorra or San Marino fan, is it really that enjoyable to see your team spanked in every group in qualification for every tournament?

My solution would be to keep the existing Pot A, move one team up from C to B and another from D to C based on the nations' FIFA World Rankings at the start of the qualification draw (leaving the first 3 pots all with 9 teams). To encourage more competition between the poorer quality teams and reduce the number of games the top players in the world are forced to play, I would make the poorer teams in Pots D to E play each other in a preliminary qualification stage.

There are 26 teams falling under the existing Pots D, E and F, which would go down to 25 under this new system. I would split these 25 into 5 groups of 5 teams with each team playing the other home and away. The top team from each group, plus the 4 best second-placed teams would then progress to the final qualification stage to play the teams from Pots A, B and C.

The final qualification stage would then comprise of 9 equal groups of 4 teams (one from Pot A, one from B, one from C and one from the Preliminary Qualifiers Pot), which would have been fairly seeded. This would reduce the number of games for the elite teams by 4 in most cases and increase the intensity of this part of the competition, generating more interest. The top teams from this Final Qualification Stage would qualify automatically as they do now in the existing system, with the top 4 second-placed teams also qualifying for the World Cup Finals automatically, abolishing the playoffs.

One could argue that the playoffs add something to the qualification process as they provide a knock-out 'cup' element which excites the neutral, but I would point to the fact that the likes of England, Holland and Spain had qualified from their groups 2 games or more before the end of the groups this time around, which rendered at least 20% of their games pointless. This is not to mention the games played between the two bottom-placed teams in the groups after the 6-game mark. Under this new system, due to the reduced number of games and the battle for second place, it is more than likely that every game will count, making for a much more exciting spectacle.

Into the World Cup Finals Group Stage seeding process...I feel this needs altering slightly also. Firstly, although I agree that the host nation should qualify automatically for the tournament, to have them as a top seed in Pot 1 in South Africa's case is laughable and devalues the competition. The host should, in my opinion, be allocated a Pot based on their FIFA World Ranking and recent performance in major tournaments, meaning South Africa would be in Pot 3.

In addition to this, to avoid the debate and disagreement of the last week regarding England and France's seeding, I would seed the UEFA teams purely upon how many points they assembled in the Final Qualification Stage, with goal difference being the decider after that. So this year the way UEFA's seeds have been allocated, the teams with the best 5 records in qualifying would be in Pot 1, with the remaining 8 in Pot 4.

Lastly, I noticed FIFA chose to separate teams from certain continents - Brazil and Argentina couldn't be drawn against the three other South American teams. Give me a break! So the South American teams are being prevented from playing arguably the best team in the tournament for geographical reasons? I guess it would be crazy to place teams on merit!

Thoughts anyone?