By Andrew Warshaw in Zurich
May 27 – Before his dramatic and surprise detention at the hands of Swiss law enforcement officers early this morning, it was business as usual for CONCACAF president Jeffrey Webb, and high on the agenda was World Cup representation and the number of nations qualifying for the finals. Webb, who has consistently campaigned for more World Cup representation for his Continent, says increasing the finals from its present 32-team format is not the best way to go about it.
Webb, whose confederation could play a key role in the outcome of Friday’s FIFA presidential election, says the idea of expanding the tournament – something Sepp Blatter’s lone challenger, Prince Ali bin al-Hussein, has proposed, as did both candidates who pulled out of the race – would not be ideal.
CONCACAF’s members from north and central America and the Caribbean have been encouraged by Webb to vote according to their consciences on Friday and while most seem likely to swing towards Blatter, Prince Ali is expected to pick up at least one big player in the United States, which nominated him four months ago.
But expanding the World Cup to 36 or even 40 teams, says Webb, should not be seen as an automatic vote-winner on Friday even though he believes CONCACAF deserve at least one more half-slot to go with their current three-and-a-half berths.
“The World Cup is a jewel of football and, for me, you shouldn’t increase the spaces in a World Cup for political reasons,” said Webb as his confederation met for pre-FIFA Congress talks. “You should increase the spaces in the World Cup because of the development of the game.
“Are we going to dilute the World Cup to appease various associations? No, we must have real leadership and courage to stand up and address it.
“To have 32 is great. If you look at the standard and the television ratings, it’s tremendous. Every single game. Do you want to go to a World Cup where you know what the score is going to be every single game?”
One way in which CONCACAF can increase its allocation is by gaining hosting rights to 2026. Webb firmly believes it would be his confederation’s turn in terms of rotation (the United States last hosted in 1994) but it is understood Fifa’s executive committee left the door open this week to bids from Africa and South America.
The issue of World Cup expansion has taken centre stage ahead of the presidential election and FIFA has announced an extraordinary executive committee meeting for Saturday morning, the day after the election, where the allocation of World Cup places per continent for 2018 and 2022 will be debated, a somewhat contentious issue since the qualification tournament for the former has already started in some regions.
UEFA’s allocation seems most vulnerable – on paper at least. Europe will have 14 slots if you include hosts Russia and one idea doing the rounds in Zurich is pegging Europe back to 13 which then frees up an extra place.
Webb, whose confederation comprises 41 members, believes strongly in proportional representation even though many of his federations are tiny Caribbean islands with little or no football pedigree. He gladly accepted an extra half place proposed by Blatter at this year’s Concacaf congress. But, he says, UEFA’s block of eight members on the 25-strong FIFA executive committee posed a potential problem for the other confederations.
“This is where the imbalance is. It’s not based on sport, it’s not based on merit, it’s based on representation. That has created a lot of the problems we have in football today.”
Although Concacaf have made it plain that Friday is a free vote for its members, Webb’s comments will not go unnoticed.
Significantly, Blatter is against increasing the number of World Cup finalists.
”We should remain with the system we have had and this system is the best one and it’s 32 teams,” Blatter said recently. ”There shall not be a revolution. The contracts we have done for the next World Cups they are for 32 teams.”
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