SportsUnderstanding Calls For Biennial World Cup Cycle

Understanding Calls For Biennial World Cup Cycle

October 24, (THEWILL) – The divisive calls for a biennial World Cup format to replace a system of one world cup every four years, which has remained unchanged since the 1930s, appear to be a recent trend within football circles. Yet, as novel as it may appear, the initial strides to change the format that has endured from the time when teams needed to get on ships to travel across borders for the sake of the quadrennial tournaments was already gaining steam 22 years ago when Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, the eighth President of world football governing body FIFA, was at the helm.

Precisely in January of 1999, Blatter announced what was then considered revolutionary plans to hold the World Cup every two years. He based his announcement on the rationale of getting national teams the rankings they duly deserve which he reasoned was not the case with the incumbent format of qualifiers and competitions founded on one world cup every four years. He believed that system to be archaic and was looking towards a system where championships were staged at regional or continental levels during uneven years that act as qualifiers for the World Cup.

Blatter’s plans, which were opposed by Europe’s leading clubs, were tabled to what was then FIFA’S Executive Committee to be studied and considered towards amendments, ideation, formalisation and implementation. It was believed that the time involved in going over the details of working out the various modalities and structural factors in streamlining the calendars to avoid overlapping competitions will mean that whatever changes came about were not going to impact the 2006 finals, the 18th World Cup competition hosted by Germany.

However, with the passage of time and the absence of real action towards bringing this recommended change to the table for plans to commence along the line of a biennial format, the noise to change the quadrennial system grew fainter by the year to the pleasure of football bodies in the West and in some parts of South America, whose opposition to the planned changes were overt and unabashed. The status quo remained unchanged and the tenure of Blatter, which was marked by controversies and litigation passed without returning to the Biennial subject.

It was not for long. Although the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) remains one of the staunchest forces against the proposal for a world cup every two years, the body provided the basis for a resurgence of the Blatter idea with the success of the UEFA Nations Cup, which encouraged the President of the South American Football Association, CONMEBOL, to propose to FIFA to expand the Nation’s League into a World Cup between world cups and therefore have more teams participate rather than just a continental national League for only teams in Europe.

President Alejandro Domínguez made this proposal in November 2018, acknowledging that it was good for the nations that will be involved and for the players, who will have the lifetime opportunity to play four world cups instead of two if the switch to a two-year cycle was implemented. Domínguez argued that it was possible to spread the hosting in a format that embraced countries in Europe, South America, North America, Africa and Asia without such a long wait as was currently the case in the four-year cycles.

Yet, just as it happened with Blatter’s announcement and in spite of Domínguez’s power within South American football and his friendship ties with current FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, the status quo held steadfast and not much came about from the CONMEBOL president’s proposal. The support of UEFA for the quadrennial format was deeply entrenched and the Union did not hesitate to give voice to its unqualified opposition to any alterations of the long-standing four-year cycle of World Cup tournaments.

That was the case until the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stepped in. In May, Saudi Arabia’s football federation formally recommended that FIFA considered staging Biennial World Cups for men and women through a proposal submitted to the world football governing body which was focused on “requesting a feasibility study to be carried out on the impact” of two-year world cup cycles with their avowed belief that football was at a critical juncture that required such an overhaul carried out at this time than at any other time before.

It was significant to note that this came at a period of football competition congestion. Backlog of matches that were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic of the previous year had been completed quickly and there were plans to add an extra competition, the UEFA Europa Conference, to the already packed European calendar of continental football.

Nonetheless, FIFA President, Gianni Infantino, who has had a close relationship with Saudi Arabia since his election in 2016, found the proposal appealing, eloquent and detailed. The creation of new and larger competitions was a key theme of Infantino’s presidency, although the global players’ union FIFPRO was always wary of the increased workloads on the players themselves, which can lead to more frequent burnout and long-term, career-altering injuries.

However, FIFA had already concluded on adding 16 new teams and 16 new games to the World Cup for the 2026 edition in Infantino’s first year as president. The tournament, which will feature 48 teams and 80 games, will be held in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, and is expected to break attendance and revenue records for the world football governing body’s coffers.

It therefore was no surprise that FIFA welcomed the Saudi Arabian proposal. Unlike in the prior pair of cases, for Blatter and Domínguez, actual action was effected to consider the biennial cycle feasibility in line with the recommendation contained in the Saudi proposal. The motion to consider it was passed by FIFA’s congress with 166 national federations voting in favor of reviewing the current situation and only 22 against.

The argument for change in the format has not changed since Blatter’s announcement 22 years before. Since the inaugural tournament of the 1930s, when mostly European nations decided the structure, the FIFA World Cup has followed a four-year cycle. Yet, that four-year gap between FIFA World Cups was now considered far too long, and the window of opportunity far too narrow, that it prevents entire generations of talent from competing. In a situation where these tournaments are the real drivers of development, there have been corners of the world denied representation in nearly a century of FIFA World Cup finals.

As a vivid example, Asia, which is home to more than half of the world’s population, still only has 4.5 spots out of a total of 32 spots more than 90 years after the first global tournament. Only 12 Asian countries have ever made the list, excluding countries with large populations such as India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The Asian example is not dissimilar from the African case. Only 13 of Africa’s 54 countries have ever competed in the World Cup in its nearly 100-year history. These statistics pale in significance when compared to 33 of Europe’s 55 teams.

According to these African and Asian federations in support of the quadrennial shift, such underrepresentation has resulted in the majority of many non-European countries being left out of the World Cup and all of the benefits that accrue from the hosting. This goes against the grain of what ought to be a truly “world cup” rather than a competition concentrated around a set of regulars, competition after competition. This is a criticism that can be addressed with an increase in frequency, which biennial cycles can solve.

The argument of players’ well-being due to the sheer number of matches and training that will be required of them to fulfill their responsibilities with such biennial switch can be handled by an overhaul of the annual footballing calendars that will take cognisance of burnout, fatigue and periods of rest, which are all part of the feasibility study requested for by the Saudi proposal to FIFA. When FIFA’s Ruling Council agreed on Wednesday last week to hold a Global Summit on December 20 to discuss the Biennial proposals with all 211 member associations, this was a top most consideration.

To avoid being arbitrary and to forestall the opposition, especially from UEFA, FIFA is following meticulous steps to arrive at a resolution of the debate. FIFA plans to await the results of a feasibility study as well as an economic analysis of the additional World Cup’s financial impact, both of which are expected to be delivered before the December 20 Summit.

This has not quelled the fire of opposition that the European football Union plans to wage against the proposals. In much the same way as FIFA is accused of favouring the switch due to financial gains, UEFA is against it for reasons of financial loss. A report commissioned by UEFA, and presented in the videoconferencing meeting with FIFA, estimated a shortfall of between 2.5 and 3 billion euros ($2.9bn to 3.5bn) across four years for European federations if FIFA were to adopt its plan to switch to a biennial World Cup.

For FIFA, whose biggest earnings come every four years, unlike the annual cash-cow of the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League, this opposition from the European body will sting. FIFA typically posts losses three years out of four and makes it up in World Cup years. The body took in $6.4 billion from 2017-2020, over 70 per cent of which came in 2018. But,UEFA’s revenue is much steadier. It earned between $2 billion and $3.5 billion each year from 2017-2020 for a total of $12.5 billion. This money argument will be at the heart of the fight to switch or not and UEFA has gone as far as to issue veiled threats about boycotting the tournament completely if they do not have their way.

As progressive and attractive a biennial switch proposes to be, the question remains if that is the silver bullet it is purposing to be. However often the tournament is staged, bidding will determine the winners and those who could not win for quadrennial cycles will not be winners in biennial tournaments except something changes. If something can be changed to make it possible, why not apply that change to the quadrennial format immediately to give them a chance today? Furthermore, those countries who cannot qualify today, will still be mostly unable to do so tomorrow if the qualification system stays the same. If change is to happen, why not now too?

All of these and much more are at the heart of the calls for a robust debate and consideration of the feasibility for change in the biggest sporting event in the world and it is about as timely as it can be.

About the Author

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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.

Jude Obafemi, THEWILLhttps://thewillnews.com
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.

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