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The president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Cheikh Salmane Ben Ibrahim Al Khalifa, says he is opposed to a South American proposal to expand the World Cup- 030 to 64 teams.
The president of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), Cheikh Salmane Ben Ibrahim Al Khalifa, said he was opposed to a South American proposal to expand to 64 teams on the World-2030, the edition of the centenary, worried about a «chaos» If the inflation of participants continued. “Personally, I do not agree”said the Bahraini leader to AFP, believing that the 2030 edition had “Already been adopted with the participation of 48 teams, so the case is settled”.
His counterpart of the South American Confederation (Conmebol), Alejandro Dominguez, had asked FIFA on Thursday to exceptionally widen the World Cup at 64 selections in 2030, to allow South America to welcome the first round of one of the pools, instead of only three matches. This World Cup will mainly take place in Spain, Morocco and Portugal. But, for the centenary of the first edition in Uruguay, three meetings are also planned in this country, in Argentina and Paraguay.
The planetary event, which has experienced continuous inflation in the number of participants, has to go from 32 to 48 selections to the 2010 World Cup, co-organized by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
“It would become chaos”
“If the question (the number of participating selections) remains subject to change, then the door will not only be opened for enlargement to 64 teams but someone may request that it be increased to 132 teams. Where would we end up? It would become chaos “explained Cheikh Salmane, on the sidelines of the 35th AFC congress in Kuala Lumpur.
However, the Asian leader did not close the door to a change after the 20134 World Cup in Saudi Arabia, which will also welcome 48 teams. “If we want to discuss the following tournaments (…) This is a different subject”he said. Mattias Grafström, FIFA Secretary General, said the worldwide body was going “Analyze this proposal” South American. “There are a lot to study, we will take our time and consult everyone”he explained. Alexsander Ceferin, boss of the European Federation (UEFA), has qualified this proposal as “Bad idea”.
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