A small but important change was made to the qualification process for the World Cup by FIFA in recent weeks.
As the European Round games drew to a close, FIFA issued a directive stating that the qualifying stages for the second-placed teams in each of the 8 pools would be changed so that the top 4 FIFA ranked teams would be seeded.
This would ensure that teams like France, Portugal and Russia, who had been less than successful in their pool stages, would get an easy ride by not having to play each other to qualify.
Up to now, the qualification path has been very democratic – every team had an equal chance – over home and away legs – to qualify for South Africa.
Now it seems some teams are deemed more equal than others for FIFA’s purposes.
Lower ranked teams such as Ireland, Bosnia Herzogovina, Slovenia were not seeded, and following the draw today, the qualifying draw looks like this:
Ireland Vs France
Russa Vs Slovenia
Portugal Vs Bosnia-Herzogovina
Ukraine Vs Greece.
What a pity that lack of performance and laziness by what are star-studded teams gets rewarded instead of recognising honest endeavour by countries who have to make do with much smaller resources and talent
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October 25th 2009 @ 3:39pm
ABCDEFG said | October 25th 2009 @ 3:39pm | Report comment
So what, do you want Portugal and France (finalist and semi-finalist in 06) to cannibalize each other just to qualify?
October 26th 2009 @ 6:44am
pothale said | October 26th 2009 @ 6:44am | Report comment
Well, if you follow that logic through, why bother having qualification in the first place? Why not just send the same teams each time?
If you’re telling me, that if it should be a choice between say Ireland or France, then it should be France, why bother with the farce of qualifying?
October 26th 2009 @ 9:04am
jimbo said | October 26th 2009 @ 9:04am | Report comment
Always controversy in the qualification process and that can’t be avoided as FIFA tries to strike a balance between growing the game in developing regions and having the best teams qualify.
Obviously the ‘best’ teams in the world will be there – say the top 10 to 20 nations, but the remainder are not really given the chance to qualify on their abilities or ranking alone.
NZ or Bahrain would certainly be an easier qualification challenge than Russia, Portugal or France.
World football also needs the qualification process for the growing interest and revenues it generates for the various football federations, including the FFA. The fact that FIFA can change the qualification rules during the qualification process shows how they are just as concerned about running a successful and profitable World Cup.