Fifa presidency candidate Luis Figo wants 48-team World Cup

[Blackleaf]

Luis Figo would consider a bigger World Cup if he is elected to replace Sepp Blatter as Fifa president.

Releasing his manifesto at Wembley Stadium, the legendary Portugal midfielder, who won the Champions League with Real Madrid in 2002 and the now defunct Cup Winners' Cup with Barcelona in 1997, said he would look at increasing the number of teams from 32 to 40 or even 48.

Figo, 42, is one of three candidates challenging Blatter, who has been Fifa President since 1998 and who has said he intends to run for a fifth term, in the election on 29 May.

He also proposes rugby-style sin-bins and reverting to the old offside rule interpretation.

Dutch federation president Michael van Praag and Jordanian Prince Ali bin Al Hussein are also in the running to become head of football's world governing body, which has more members than the UN.


Luis Figo: Fifa candidate wants World Cup with 48 teams

BBC Sport
19 February

Fifa presidency candidate Luis Figo releasing his manifesto at Wembley Stadium, north west London

Luis Figo would consider a bigger World Cup if he is elected to replace Sepp Blatter as Fifa president.

Releasing his manifesto at Wembley Stadium, the legendary Portugal midfielder said he would look at increasing the number of teams from 32 to 40 or even 48.

Figo, 42, is one of three candidates challenging Blatter in the election on 29 May.

He also proposes rugby-style sin-bins and reverting to the old offside rule interpretation.

Dutch federation president Michael van Praag and Jordanian Prince Ali bin Al Hussein are also in the running to become head of football's world governing body.

Former Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter Milan winger Figo, who played at two World Cups, said on Thursday that the current format could be increased to 40 teams or Fifa could stage two 24-team competitions simultaneously on two continents, followed by a knockout phase in one nation.

He said: "Both these options are feasible with an extra three to four days of tournament play. If this expansion were to take place I believe that additional teams should come from non-European nations.

"We not only make sure that we include more countries from across the world, but also enable Fifa to raise significant increased revenues that can be used to invest in the growth of the game globally."

Figo, the 2001 Fifa world player of the year, also proposes:

• Spreading half of Fifa's $2.5bn revenue over four years to associations to fund grassroots football.
• Redistributing $1bn of Fifa's $1.5bn cash reserves to the 209 national federations.
• Increased use of technology in the game, using sin-bins for unsporting behaviour.
• Reverting back to the previous interpretation of the offside rule, "where a player is judged offside whether directly involved in the play or not".

Blatter, 78, has been Fifa boss since 1998 and said in June 2014 that he intended to run for a fifth term.

He was criticised for Fifa's handling of Michael Garcia's report into alleged corruption during the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which included the strongest bid for the 2018 World Cup - England's - losing out to oil-rich Russia, and oil-rich Qatar winning the 2022 bid, despite concerns that the desert nation may be too host to host the tournament.

Number of teams at each World Cup (host nation):

1930 (Uruguay): 13
1934 (Italy): 16
1938 (France): 15
1950 (Brazil): 13
1954 (Switzerland): 16
1958 (Sweden): 16
1962 (Chile): 16
1966 (England): 16
1970 (Mexico): 16
1974 (West Germany): 16
1978 (Argentina): 16
1982 (Spain): 24
1986 (Mexico): 24
1990 (Italy): 24
1994 (USA): 24
1998 (France): 32
2002 (Japan and South Korea): 32
2006 (Germany): 32
2010 (South Africa): 32
2014 (Brazil): 32
2018 (Russia): 32 expected
2022 (Qatar): 32 expected


BBC Sport - Luis Figo: Fifa candidate wants World Cup with 48 teams

 

[Zipperfish]

The FA is backing the Jordanian prince? wtf?

 

[coldstream]

I'd say the only thing i'd agree with is to go back to the old offside rule. I really don't like sin bins, or penalty boxes (hockey's equivalence) for soccer. I really question why the most successful and wealthy sport in the world needs much improvement, stick with what's worked.

32 teams seems to have a nice balance, with the top 2 teams of each draw advancing to the quarters. Stretching that would add an added burden to hosting the Cup.. which is already prohibitive. Everything else should be determined in preliminaries.

 

[Blackleaf]

I'd say the only thing i'd agree with is to go back to the old offside rule. I really don't like sin bins, or penalty boxes (hockey's equivalence) for soccer. I really question why the most successful and wealthy sport in the world needs much improvement, stick with what's worked.

We should go back to the old offside rule because the current offside rule, which was only introduced ten years or so ago and which ALLOWS a player to be in an offside position provided they are NOT "actively involved in play", seems so complicated at times you need a degree in rocket science to understand it.

It was designed to promote attacking football, but it is open to interpretation.

According to Fifa:

"Interfering with play means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate."

However, a player does not necessarily have to touch the ball to influence play. They are still offside if, in the opinion of the referee, they are judged to be:

Interfering with an opponent If an attacker interferes with an opponent by either preventing them from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent's line of vision or movements or making a gesture or movement which deceives or distracts an opponent, then they are offside.

Gaining an advantage If the ball is played into the penalty area and he plays the ball that rebounds to him off a post, crossbar or an opposing defender, then the attacker is offside as they have gained an advantage by being in that position.

I'm with Figo in that we should go back to the old, simpler offside rule which states that you are offside whether you are interfering with play or not. Because this current rule can be confusing at times, even for referees and linesmen.

You can't be offside if:

You receive the ball directly from a goal kick, a throw-in or a corner
You are in your own half of the pitch
You are level with the second last or last two opponents
You are level with or behind the ball
You are not actively involved in play, as explained above

For any offside offence, the referee awards an indirect free-kick (meaning the ball has to be touched by at least one other player after the free kick has been taken for that team to be able to score) to the opposing team, to be taken from the place where the infringement occurred.


I also think that football SHOULD have sin bins and penalty boxes like they have in rugby union and rugby league. Keep the normal yellow and red cards but introduce a white card which can be shown to players who show dissent to the referee or a linesman, with those players being sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes. This is something that Uefa President Michael Platini has advocated.

Jérôme Champagne, another candidate for the Fifa presidency, wants to introduce sin bins and orange cards for what he calls “in-between fouls committed in the heat of the moment”.

I think the introduction of a sin binning would cut down both dissent and fouls. Many referees have a habit of shying away from showing a second yellow, and therefore a red, to players who have already been booked. The suspicion is that this happens because officials are scared of the reaction should it turn out that they made the wrong decision, so this is where a sin-bin could come in handy: a player who is already on a booking commits a foul, receives an orange card, is forced off the field temporarily and knows that a third foul will mean he is off for good.

32 teams seems to have a nice balance, with the top 2 teams of each draw advancing to the quarters. Stretching that would add an added burden to hosting the Cup.. which is already prohibitive. Everything else should be determined in preliminaries.

Figo has suggested that Fifa could have a 48-team World Cup by staging two 24-team competitions simultaneously on two continents, with all the teams who qualified from their groups then involved in a single knockout stage in another country. He believes this will help Fifa raise more revenues that they can then use to invest in the growth of the game globally.

I also believe we should make it easier for the tiny nations to qualify for World Cups. At the moments, the likes of San Marino, Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and American Samoa have no chance of qualifying for World Cups because they always get trounced by the much bigger boys in their qualifying groups. We should have World Cup qualifying groups in each FIFA region which are composed only of the minnows: so in Europe we'd have one or two groups consisting of only San Marino, Andorra, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Faroe Islands, Gibraltar etc. That way some of these tiny nations are then guaranteed to play in the World Cup finals.