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FIFA politicking World Cup qualifying spots

5th March, 2011
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5th March, 2011
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New Zealand All Whites celebrate their goal against Italy at the World Cup.

New Zealand players celebrate after New Zealand's Shane Smeltz, partially visible at second from left, scored a goal, during the World Cup Group F soccer match between Italy and New Zealand at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit, South Africa, Sunday, June 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

The inner machinations of football politics have risen to the fore once again. In what has mainly gone unnoticed by the Australian football media, the FIFA Executive convened on Thursday to decide the continental allocations for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

FIFA has decided to change the format of the half playoff spots. Whereas for 2010 an AFC team played an OFC team, and North played South America, for 2014 a ‘random’ draw will be conducted in July to determine which confederation plays each other.

The two confederations who stand to be affected adversely through this determination are Asia and Oceania. Simply put, both were blindsided by CONCACAF politicking.

On Wednesday, CONCACAF’s American Secretary General, along with fellow FIFA Executive member and CONCACAF president, Jack Warner, proclaimed to the world that they deserved an upgrade from their existing 3.5 places to a full 4 spots.

“From both a sporting and political perspective we believe we warrant the extra half-place… politically, we have the number of countries to warrant it and our countries’ performances in the World Cup have demonstrated that we deserve it,” he said.

They wanted the status quo to change in their favour. Could you blame them? A mediocre Central American team like Costa Rica, Honduras or Panama, or Caribbean Island such as Trinidad or Jamaica do not stand a chance at qualifying against a South American team. However, this was a mere smokescreen.

Blazer would have been well aware the possibility of him stealing a spot from Africa, Asia or South America was slim, but he knew his teams stood a much better chance of qualification if the route through South America was augmented.

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But this article is not about whether CONCACAF deserves more representation in Brazil, nor the quality, or lack-there-of in CONCACAF (frankly, I’m of the firm belief that outside of the USA and Mexico, there is very little footballing quality or a nation with a significant population in that confederation; their 3.5 should be reduced to 3 or 2.5 births). This article is about the lack of foresight shown by Asia and Oceania’s football politicians.

With no disrespect intended to New Zealand or Oceania, each Confederation would see their candidate having a 65-95 per cent chance of qualifying against the Oceania champion. The fact that New Zealand qualified against Bahrain was an anomaly. Bahrain themselves should not have been the Asian candidate.

A 95th minute winner was needed in Tashkent from a bullet Mahmoud ‘Ringo’ Abdulrahman freekick; another Ringo freekick against Uzbekistan in Manama; and a scrappy goal off a set-piece against Qatar in Manama to get to the AFC playoff.

Here, the stars aligned in stoppage time for Bahrain, where they went behind in the 91st minute against Saudi, only to score an away goal winner in the 94th minute in Riyadh to get to face New Zealand. Kiwi scenes of euphoria would not have been so if Bahrain converted their 50th minute penalty in Wellington, or if they had their scoring boots on in Manama where they botched chance after chance.

The continent that faces Oceania would fancy their chances; conversely the continent that faces South American opposition tends to quiver in their boots, hence the great demand by Blazer and co to change the status quo.

Mohammed bin Hammam and David Chung (PNG President of Oceania) must see the change as a setback. Mohammed bin Hammam had the opportunity to go to the Executive meeting in Zurich and offer an olive branch to Oceania. The final Asia qualifying round consists of 10 teams in two groups of five.

In every single pre-determined match day, one team has a bye. Asia could have and should have welcomed the winner and runner-up of the Oceania Nations Cup into the final round of AFC qualifying. New Caledonia or Solomon Islands would almost certainly finish last in their groups, while New Zealand would have to show remarkable consistency over 10 entire games, and would not be favoured to finish higher than third.

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The benefits for Oceania here would have been the opportunity to get two teams theoretically into the World Cup. The main benefit for Asia would be a virtual guarantee of five teams qualifying for Brazil, without having to make a single change to the existing qualifying format or matchday schedule. But common sense did not prevail.

Bin Hammam chanced his hand that the status quo of the AFC/OFC playoff would remain. It did not. Now an Asian team faces the nigh-on-impossible task of an away trip to South America as a distinct possibility.

David Chung dispelled the notion that the route for Oceania was now harder in the New Zealand press: “They’re all hard. Anyone who says that playing through the Asian route is easy has got rocks in their heads. It was tough and the boys will tell you it was, and they overcame that.”

Naturally, David, the route to the World Cup for any of your teams is incredibly difficult, but clearly you would much rather the prospect of a playoff against Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Iran or Saudi rather than Uruguay, Chile, Columbia or Ecuador.

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Among other things determined by the Executive, New Zealand beat out Peru, Wales and Tunisia to host 2015 men’s Under-20 World Cup – a big congratulations must be in order; and sole bidder Canada will host the 2015 women’s World Cup after Zimbabwe unsurprisingly withdrew their bid due to a lack of suitable infrastructure.

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