Tomorrow will see the draw for next year's World Cup Finals. For all the negative coverage we hear about Brazil's ability to deliver on building it's World Cup Stadia, Brazil is the world's most illustrious football nation. Therefore the idea of a Brazillian World Cup is not particularly controversial on footballing grounds. Now let's fast forward eight years to 2022. This tournament will see a host nation with a very different pedigree- Qatar. Whereas Brazil have qualified for every World Cup to date (not to mention being the five times World Champions), Qatar have never even qualified for a World Cup before. Let's also not forget that Qatar won the bid on the basis of a summer World Cup. Now that is apparently not going to happen!
For much of the criticism FIFA President Sepp Blatter has correctly endured, the idea of moving the World Cups around the continents was with some merit against a backdrop of evidence suggesting there were football powers emerging from both Africa and Asia. For me, this Qatar episode has I'm afraid blown FIFA's whole credibility up in smoke. For many people in the West, the idea of taking the World Cup to the Middle East was always going to be contentious on Human Rights grounds. But whilst nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran may both also carry much political baggage, they at least had some credibility of having appeared at previous World Cups.
We do from time to time hear of the need to get rid of Mr Blatter from some sections of the game. To make sure this farce is never to be experienced by world football ever again, getting rid of this ridiculous specimen of a man is just the tip of the iceberg. We must consider the reform of the World Cup itself to make it fit for purpose once again. Do we even need to have a World Cup bidding process? I have come to the view that we don't necessarily need this process of bidding for the right to hold the greatest football show on earth; a process could be introduced instead to reward success on the pitch as the way forward.
A very simple way of rewarding success on the pitch would be to allow the World Cup winner the honour of staging the next tournament. Some critics would say Brazil would then have a platform for complete domination. I would on balance share that concern. One dimension of what enables the World Cup to capture the global imagination is the cultural variation of a different host nation. For that reason I would not on balance favour a system of simply allowing the World Cup winner to continuously win the right to host a World Cup per se, especially if we have a cycle of a dominant winning nation. I am not sure there would be the same level of global captivation if there was a cycle of nearly every World Cup being staged in Brazil or Germany for instance.
That said, going down that route would be better than the status quo which has proven to allow a football minnow to be awarded the honour of hosting the World Cup in what many people believe to be very dubious circumstances. It should also be pointed out that the last time in which Brazil hosted the tournament in 1950, it was their near neighbours from Uruguay who came out on top (from a most unusual tournament format which saw the last four play in a final group rather than a knockout format). However, Brazil's greatest teams which have produced the likes of Pele, Carlos Alberto, Zico, Socrates, Ronaldo etc have emerged of course in the years since they hosted the 1950 tournament.
I would personally favour a system of rewarding football success by first of all allowing the World Cup Winner the honour of being awarded the right to host the next World Cup, provided they have not hosted the event previously over a twenty year period. The only other factors which could see a World Cup Winner not host the subsequent tournament are political instability, lack of suitable stadia, or the country in question simply deciding they do not wish to host the tournament. Should a World Cup Winner not meet the criteria to host a subsequent tournament, I would propose to look first at the World Cup Runners-Up, then the Semi-Finalists, and then the Quarter-Finalists etc until a country is decided upon who has not been a host over the recent tournaments (and of course who is not seen as a pariah politically).
When it comes to choosing between the two semi-finalists or two or more quarter-finalists, the deciding factor could be a points table based on the teams' performances in that tournament. In addition to the usual one point for a draw and three points for a win as in the group stage, knockout matches could merely reflect the result after ninety minutes for the purpose of such a performance table. In an unlikely event that two teams who reach the same stage of a World Cup share an identical points and goal difference record, the two nations could have their World Cup record from the previous World Cup campaign (from four years ago) used as a deciding factor instead.
I recognise that some people may read this post and come to the conclusion that I am proposing a system that will stifle the ambition of some less illustrious footballing nations. I STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH THAT! I WILL GIVE FOUR REASONS WHY. First of all, this system would mean a big hitter like Brazil, Germany, or Italy (like any other nation) can only host the World Cup once every twenty years at best. Secondly, every World Cup since 1986 has seen an African Nation reach the knockout stages; although there is little doubt that Africa can perform better if off the field matters can be rooted out. Thirdly, Mexico (from the CONCACAF Confederation) regularly make the World Cup knockout stages. Fourthly, Asian Football has had plenty of highs in recent World Cup history: Australia, Saudi Arabia, Japan and South Korea have all reached the knockout stages at various stages over the last twenty years. NOW THIS IS THE MAIN POINT: IT WOULD BLOCK A NATION WITH NO WORLD CUP PEDIGREE FROM EVER STAGING A WORLD CUP EVER AGAIN!
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