CONCACAF president says it's time to change 'archaic' World Cup qualifying format
CONCACAF could have a completely new World Cup qualifying format for the 2022 tournament. At least that will be the case if confederation president Victor Montagliani gets his way.
The recently elected president called CONCACAF's current format "archaic" and said he intends to push for an overhaul of it so that smaller countries aren't eliminated so early. He thinks it's important that the confederation do a better job taking care of all of its members, not just those that have a chance to qualify for the World Cup.
"Something needs to change because you can't have 85 percent of your members who are on the outside looking in two years before the World Cup," Montagliani told The Associated Press. "It doesn't make sense."
"It's great for those six teams over the next year and a bit but how about the other ones? Its hard."
In the current format, only six teams make it to the final round of qualifying, which will begin in November and runs through October 2017. Prior to that, the semifinal round is made up of 12 teams, which began in November of 2015. Both of those rounds are played with group play, guaranteeing the participants at least six matches. The first three rounds of qualifying were two-legged ties and played in March, June and September 2015. So some teams were eliminated in March of 2015 after just two matches.
"Can you imagine you are a country trying to find a sponsor and they say, 'I'm all for it, when's your next big game?' And it's three years from now," Montagliani said during an interview in London.
"So we seriously need to look at our World Cup qualifying system that is a bit archaic. We need to be a bit more all-encompassing. We're looking at how we balance competitions with our commercial (priorities) without putting too much stress on already too busy calendars as well."
The good news for Montagliani is that the majority of teams in CONCACAF are the smaller nations he's trying to help so he has a vote advantage, but we'll see how many of those smaller nations want the changes he's proposing. Some of them have spoken of how expensive World Cup qualifying is because of the travel, and giving them more matches also means raising the costs for them.
The biggest countries will likely have issue with Montagliani's proposal because it would lessen the number of matches they play against the confederation's best teams, which makes for fewer good, competitive matches. It's harder to get fans interested in those matches, pack stadiums, get TV viewers and, of course, it doesn't help them get better as a team. Also, a change to the final round of qualifying that takes away the single-group format could eliminate some of the best rivalries in CONCACAF, like the United States vs. Mexico, and make it so they never play in qualifying.
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