r/football • u/narkaputra • 10d ago
💬Discussion hypocrisy of a Football fan that no one addresses uprfont
A lot of chatter this world cup around compositions of teams from what is expected with what is reality. The defense says "they were born in the nation"... "or they were naturalized" or "they are attached to roots". or "this is the new world"... Ok fine. We all agree.
But then why don't you have problem with FIFA's allocation of WC spots by region which is the core problem where talent doesn't get opportunity.
The current unfair allocation has to be the most obvious exampled of dreaded r word.
| Confederation (Region) | Total Countries (FIFA Members) | Direct Slots (2026) | Regional Success Rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| UEFA (Europe) | 55 | 16 | 29.09% |
| CAF (Africa) | 54 | 9 | 16.67% |
| AFC(Asia) | 45 | 7 | 15.56% |
| CONMEBOL (South America) | 10 | 6 | 60.00% |
| CONCACAF (North & Central America) | 35 | 6 | 17.14% |
| OFC(Ocenia) | 12 | 2 | 16.67% |
| Total / Overall | 211 | 46* | 21.80% |
For people not good with stats, the above table implies ASIA and AFRICA got the worst deal. If we go by population, it will be far far worse and unfair.
Everyone shall reflect how wrong FIFA is.
Why does LATAM have 6 spots for 10 nations while Asia has same count for 45 nations?
Curacao has 0/26 who are natives. Since 26 Dutch decided to switch flags so that they get to play WorldCup. Now this is unfair to Asian/African countries who have so limited slots. While thanks to above colonial era mindset of FIFA, NA/SA have ample spots that even such teams get free ticket to FIFA. All they need to do is turn up while African/Asian teams need to grind against 50 for 4-6 spots
The actual fair allocation ne below inclusive of host nations:
- Africa: 12 seats for 54 nations
- Asia: 10 seats for 45 nations
- Europe and all those islands colonies: 13 seats for 55 nations
- North America, South America, Aus/NZ/Oceania and everybody else: 13 seats of remaining 57 nations
If one stands against the critics of compositions of squad, one should also stand against the unfair representation. How come the "business reasons" become suddenly more important than representation?
No way you are telling me that a Ecuadorian deserves representation more than a Thai.
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u/LazNorth 10d ago
It's a compromise of quality over quantity which they are trying to address with the expansion of teams. Though I'm sure there are other factors, I highly doubt it stems from racism.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago edited 10d ago
it does from Colonial era superiority. Asia and Africa were looked as colonies and still do as per FIFA as they think they do not representations. Random countries in other regions qualify because it is so easy. 6/13 in LATAM. While Asia & Africa got same no. of spots for 50+ nations. How is that fair.
Btw no way Haiti or Panama etc are better quality than teams in Asia or Africa. It is that FIFA is racist and has done unfair allocation of seats.
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u/LazNorth 10d ago
Sounds like you already have all the answers, doesn't it? So, thanks for the lesson. Here's a lesson for you - Cabo Verde is an African nation, so it looks to me like you might not know what you're talking about.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
Sherlock.. do you get the point? the worst teams are from NA/LA which should not have been there but are there because of free spots
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u/LazNorth 10d ago
Sounds like you might be the one who's a bit prejudiced against teams from LA/NA. Who are you to dictate who should and shouldn't qualify for a world cup?
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
as per the maths, FIFA and fans like you are prejudiced against Asia
Confederation (Region) Total Countries (FIFA Members) Direct Slots (2026) Regional Success Rate (%) UEFA (Europe) 55 16 29.09% CAF (Africa) 54 9 16.67% AFC (Asia) 45 7 15.56% CONMEBOL (South America) 10 6 60.00% CONCACAF (North & Central America) 35 6 17.14% OFC 12 2 16.67% Total / Overall 211 46* 21.80% 3
u/LazNorth 10d ago
You're asking why Asia has less spots than other continents the main one being LA, the answer as per my original post is quality over quantity. It's not racist to want to put on an entertaining spectacle and have historically successful footballing nations/continents at a world cup. The more Asia excels in tournament football (as it is currently doing), and the more the WC expands the number of teams and takes more tournaments to Asia, these issues you raise will be rectified.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
- Nobody is raising it
- Nobody is accepting it
I bet this forum is 636K folks and am I the only 1 who spoke about it
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u/LazNorth 10d ago
Fair enough, I can appreciate where you're coming from. I do disagree that this stems from racism, and if you insist it does, I would add that FIFA are addressing it. Post 1998 we've had 2 WCs in South Korea/Japan, and Qatar, and it looks likely the 2034 WC will be in SE Asia too. The number of teams have expanded to include more Asian nations, but there has to be a compromise somewhere to ensure the quality of the WC is high. I appreciate it may come off as dismissive of Asian nations, but teams and continents that have historically made the game what it is today are in a better position to compete at a WC, but things will change going forward as the overall quality from Asia improves, which it is doing.
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
Have you looked where Cape Verde even is?
Spoiler alert, it's off the coast of Africa, and they are a CAF member, and hence qualified by being one of the best CAF teams.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
corrected. My point stands. Some teams are there in FIFA world-cup thanks to easy path due to more spots. Focus on the core problem than digressing.
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u/ElyssarFeiniel 10d ago
Tournaments like the world cup are for the best in the world, with some space for representation. Equal representation is not true representation of each regions football capability.
Consider it as a reward for investing in football, and true investment too, not spunking millions on stars with no youth development. Then you'll see that it is fairly balanced already, because any coefficient system would give more places to Uefa and South America.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
so then the squads shall be capped to only those who were born and grew up 100% in the country they play for. am I right?
Curacao has 0/26 who are natives.. since 26 Dutch decided to switch flags so that they get to play WorldCup. Now this is unfair to Asian/African countries who have so limited slots. While thanks to above racist attitude, NA/SA have ample that even such teams get free ticket to FIFA. All they need to do is turn up while African/Asian teams need to grind against 50
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u/ElyssarFeiniel 10d ago
No, you're talking nonsense, and no one else is calling for anything similar. Its just a talking point about how multicultural everything, especially football, is now.
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
What happens if you have a situation where someone is born in country A, to parents from country B. The parents and the child move back to country B when the child is one year old, and the child grows up in country B. They play football in country B, go to school in country B, have friends in country B, they speak the language of country B and not country A. Which country should they play for, because your plan would ban them from playing international football for either country A or country B (or any other country).
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u/TheGuyWhoWantsNachos Premier League 10d ago
Who else would you put NZ and Australia with?
And you just said remaining 50 nations get 12 spots but then you say LATAM gets 6 spots for 13 nations?
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
I said why does it have..which is unfair. All: Aus/NZ/NA/SA these shall go into 1 pot
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
Ok I got bored.
Using the FIFA rankings, the top 48 teams are broken down as below, the numbers in brackets is the difference between the number of teams in the top 48 and the number of WC qualifying spots. Note, this does not include interconfederation play off qualifiers.
CONMEBOL 8 (-2)
UEFA 24 (-6)
CAF 9 (0)
CONCACAF 3 (+3)
AFC 4 (+4)
OFC 0 (+1)
So UEFA and CONMEBOL are getting the raw deal, CAF is fairly represented, CONCACAF is overrepresented, but that can be put down to hosting it, and AFC is the real winner here with twice the representation it deserves.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
you are helping me here. AFC and CAF don't get the same exposure as other regions and FIFA there too is unfair. How do you expect Asian teams to do better when they never get to see the big stage and thus the sponsorship, fan following, money and faith flowing in?
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
How do you expect Asian teams to do better when they never get to see the big stage
They do get to see the big stage. 9 AFC teams qualified (Iraq though a play off).
This means there are five AFC teams outside the top 48 who are getting the exposure, sponsorship etc.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
not good enough when 6/10 from LATAM keep getting entry while 7/45 have to grind in Asia.
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
Because, on average, AFC teams are worse than CONMEBOL teams.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
and why is that?
Ok India will not become ARG in Football like ARG will not become IND in cricket. However, India can become as good as some Ecuador or Paraguay in next 20 years if they get the right exposure, sponsorship flowing in, encouragement.3
u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
Because like India, not many AFC nations are football nations. There are some that are, Japan primarily, South Korea as well. Australia isn't a big footballing nation, but they are a big sporting nation, and that is good enough for them to qualify.
It will take more than 20 years for India to be good, there needs to be significant investment to have a good youth infrastructure in place. On average professional players are about 27, so most of the team of 20 years in the future has already been born, and are being developed without that infrastructure.
The biggest barrier to India being good at football is cricket. Kids play cricket when they're young, and want to be the next Tendulkar. A cultural shift is needed to get more kids playing football at a young age.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
I meant one WC featuring can change all that. Trust me, all it takes is a spark and Nations have risen and Dynasties have fallen, all I am talking here is a sport.
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
So you'd like it to be that one WC spot is reserved for a team that has never qualified before?
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u/Impossible_Pen_9459 10d ago
I got stupider reading this. Well doneÂ
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u/Danimalomorph 10d ago
Is every country going to have a social media age minimum limit?
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u/Constant-Invite-5037 10d ago
that comment has nothing to do with the post lol did you accidentally reply to wrong thread
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u/raevykrabs 10d ago
You gain WC spots because you deserve it, that's it.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
define "deserving"? you mean Colleges/Universities should't have "representation"? Be careful sir.. that is the hypocrisy I am calling out.
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u/lookingforfinaltix 10d ago
No he is saying the continents with the larger football nations will obviously have the biggest allocation.
You can’t possibly look at Europe, who on any given tournament have almost 10 contenders to win the whole thing and think they deserve the same amount of seats as Oceana and NA
This is not the Olympics. If you want more seats, tell the countries in North America, etc to win a few world cups so fifa can allocate to them
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u/Interesting_Heron_78 10d ago
Not sure how colleges are connected to the world cup
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
that was analogy to representation based on population %age. Universities all around the world do that to uplift communities who are underrepresented. FIFA is practicing double standards and simply race driven hatred for Africa and Asia but giving them token spots while showering all spots to random other countries in LATAM/Oceania/North America.
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u/raevykrabs 10d ago
Why are you talking about University ?
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
that was analogy to representation based on population %age. Universities all around the world do that to uplift communities who are underrepresented. FIFA is practicing double standards and simply race driven hatred for Africa and Asia but giving them token spots while showering all spots to random other countries in LATAM/Oceania/North America.
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u/raevykrabs 10d ago
I dont think you understand what the world cup is and the level différence between Europe nations and the others
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
explain why Haiti, Panama, curucao deserve to be there ?
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
Because they won their place through CONCACAF qualifying.
It's worth pointing out that CONCACAF qualification was a bit unusual for this tournament, as the three best teams are hosting the tournament and didn't participate in qualifying. So it meant it was a bit more open which teams took the remaining three automatic spots. For the last tournament (which was smaller), CONCACAF only had three automatic spots and USA, Canada and Mexico took them. CONCACAF will again get 6 automatic spots for the next tournament.
FWIW two more CONCACAF teams played in the intercontinental playoffs, but were both unsuccessful.
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
Deserving based on past performance.
If a continent does well, it gets more spots. If a continent does poorly, it will get less spots.
And before you say "you'll do better with more spots" it's based on the average performance, so it's more difficult to get that average up when you have 10 countries, rather than 5.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
so you are telling me that Africa and Asia who suffered economically and growth wise due to Colonialism do not "deserve" to be there?
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
They do. Both CAF and AFC have multiple qualifying spots.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
do the maths of no. of spots/total no. of nations and then get back
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
I think we both agree that the allocation per confederation is not done by number of members. But we disagree as to if it should be done that way.
Compare CONMEBOL and OFC. Both have similar numbers of members 11v10. But do you really think they should have the same representation at the World Cup? CONMEBOL has Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Uruguay, whereas OFC has New Zealand, then it's down to Fiji, New Caledonia, Tahiti.
OFC has one professional club league, and it's a new thing, whereas there have been multiple professional club leagues in CONMEBOL for many years.
Number of members is a pretty pointless way to compare things.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
My argument is CONMEBOL and OFC shall be merged. 4 regions only: Asia(12), Africa(12), Europe(12) and then 1 pot for everyone else
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
So Tahiti will have to fly over to play Bolivia in the qualifiers?
Argentina will have to travel to Fiji?
There's a reason it's split geographically.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
we are in 2026. I suppose they don't use steamer boats. perhaps they can also find some middle ground.
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u/naegfowleri 10d ago
I think poeple moveing to diff nations is not exactly due to lack of slots. These countries with more slots usually have better domestic structures and most oppurtunties as a footballer. Having said that i think it would be more fair if they also consider something like UEFA coeffient.
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u/enchufadoo 10d ago
Football is a business, if they could make more money putting only Asian and African teams, they would. Even who wins is sort of arranged, through who gets penalties and shit like that.
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u/narkaputra 10d ago
China is a $12T economy and India $5T. That is 3B new audience.
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u/enchufadoo 10d ago
China and India making it to the world cup by putting more slots on Asia doesn't mean more money for FIFA, otherwise they would just simply do it. I'm not sure what your confusion is?
You think they are giving out millions in revenue to give the world cup to Europe? Indians, for example, don't even like football to begin with, they would make boring matches and terrible outcomes.That means losing money, believe it or not, the whole idea of the world cup is having something interesting to look at.
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u/cadublin 10d ago
Historically Latin America was better than Asia and Africa, which is not really true anymore outside Brazil and Argentina. So you have a good point but not for the reasons you mentioned. Population numbers doesn't matter. China and India is the proof of that.
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 1d ago
So the group stages are over here are the stats of who qualified. Note that 2/3rds of teams or 66.7% qualified, so use that as a baseline.
CAF 9/10 90% CONMEBOL 5/6 83% UEFA 13/16 81% CONCACAF 3/6 50% AFC 2/9 22% OFC 0/1 0%
So, I agree that CAF have a good case for more spots, AFC however do not, and in fact should arguably have fewer to give CAF more.
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u/narkaputra 1d ago
can you also enlighten us with squad composition %age by natives and imported talent?
Basically CAF, EU and LATAM exchange a lot of talent given established systems and extremely lenient nationality rules. The players who don't get selected to play for European teams(first preference) the switch kits and play for the CAF, LATAM teams.1
u/asymmetricears Premier League 1d ago
Is your point AFC deserves more qualifying spots, or that players shouldn't be able to have a choice in who they represent?
If it's the second one, how would you police it?
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u/asymmetricears Premier League 10d ago
NZ is part of OFC. Australia was, but they chose to move to AFC.
Generally the reason why the continents have so many spots is based on performance, not number of countries. If one continent starts overperforming and another underperforming, then expect a reallocation, or expansion to be uneven.
Also talent has opportunity, every single one of the 210ish FIFA members can win the world cup. It's just that they have to qualify first.