Cav's Place

Noticing how unfair the current regulations for the World Cup are, in both qualifying and the final tournament, I tried to think of a better way to do it. Below, you will see what I came up with. This is a rather old idea of mine which I have made some minor adjustments to recently. After you read it, tell me what you think.

The first thing we need is the elimination of draws. Luck is enough of a factor in the actual matches, doesn’t need to decide which teams will play against each other as well. This means eliminating groups that compete in parallel and having a single championship. There are, of course, way too many teams for that, so it has to be broken down somehow.
The best way to do that would be by creating divisions. There will be a World Group with 24 teams and continental championships for each of the 6 confederations. The first division of each continental championship must be allowed, by the rules that apply to it, to have 12 teams. If there are not enough countries on that continent to fill the group, or there aren’t enough left after eliminating the ones that are in the World Group, then of course that division will have less than 12 teams, but it must be allowed to have 12 teams if, at any moment, there will be 12 teams to fill it. This rule does not apply to lower divisions, for the continents where these will exist.

The championship, in all divisions, will run over 4 years. In the World Group, each team will play each other team twice, home and away. In the continental championships, each team will play each other team 4 times, twice home and twice away (or whatever is appropriate, in case this is impossible). It is possible for each team to play each other team more than 4 times if that specific division contains less than 10 teams. No team, regardless of division, may play less than 20 matches, excluding play-offs, over the course of the 4 years.
The regular championship will start in the autumn of the 1st year and end in the spring of the 4th year. During the summer of the 4th year there will be a final tournament for the top 16 teams from the World Group and promotion/relegation play-offs for all divisions. As you can see, the World Group is basically an elite qualifying stage.

In the first round of that final tournament, the team on the first place will play the team on 16th place, 2nd place will play against 15th place and so on until 7th place will play against 8th place. Then the winners will play in the quarter-finals, then semi-finals and finals, just like any other tournament.
The difference would be that teams that lose in the first round will keep playing in order to set a classification among themselves that will be used in the play-off to stay in the World Group. Those eight teams will play each other in the first play-off round, the winners ensuring their continued presence in the World Group, the losers going through two more rounds to establish a clear classification among themselves, now being considered places 13-16 in the tournament regardless of their World Group position before it, in order to determine who will play who in the relegation/promotion play-off.

The last 8 teams in the World Group will relegate at the end of each championship to their respective continental first divisions. The first team in each of the first continental divisions will promote at the same time to the World Group. This is to ensure that it is truly a world group, having at least one team from each confederation.
The second placed teams from each continental division will be placed in a group where they will play each other once, on a neutral venue, as a separate part of the final tournament. The first two will promote directly to the World Group. The next 4 will enter a play-off, playing one match each against the corresponding team placed 13 to 16 in the tournament. That means 3rd place in this group will play against 16th place in the tournament, 4th against 15th, 5th against 14th and 6th against 13th. These matches will also be part of the final tournament, being played on the final day. The winners will be in the World Group in the next season, the losers will be in their respective first divisions.

Each confederation that has more than one local division may choose any number of teams that relegate and promote from each division where this applies and determine whether they’ll do that directly or after a play-off. The only requirements are that their first division will be able send at least two teams to promote into the World Group (one directly and one through the play-off) and to accept all the teams that relegate to it from said World Group.

In order to have a continental trophy as well, there would be a match between the best placed team from each continent in the final tournament (or in the World Group, if none made the top 16) and the winner of the corresponding first division. These matches will also be a part of the final tournament.

Figuring out how to switch from the current system to what I suggest was quite easy. There could be a last regular World Cup and the results from it’s group stage will be used to determine the teams that will be entered in the World Group for the first championship in the new format. It’s simple, the first 3 from each of the 8 groups of the Cup will be in the World Group for the championship that will start right after the tournament. Of course, the host country of the final tournament will no longer be automatically qualified.
I realize that this does not ensure having a team from each confederation in the World Group, but that situation will be rectified the next time around. This might even be a good thing, giving time the weaker confederations time to determine the exact requirements of playing in the World Group and perhaps aiding at least one of their members in order to create at least one team worthy of the challenge.

The match order during the final tournament should be the following:
Day 1: 2nd place group round 1
Day 2: First round matches 1-4
Day 3: First round matches 5-8
Day 4: 2nd place group round 2
Day 5: Quarterfinal matches 1-2
Day 6: Quarterfinal matches 3-4
Day 7: 2nd place group round 3
Day 8: Matches to avoid relegation play-off
Day 9: Semifinals
Day 10: 2nd place group round 4
Day 11: Deciders for relegation play-off round 1
Day 12: Continental finals 1-2
Day 13: 2nd place group round 5, 3rd place play-off
Day 14: Deciders for relegation play-off round 2, Final
Day 15: Continental finals 3-4
Day 16: Continental finals 5-6
Day 17: Relegation/promotion play-off

As a final note, I’ll say how I think the 32 participants of a final tournament of the World Cup in it’s current format should be picked. Those would be 12 from Europe (winners of the 8 groups and winners of the play-offs between the 2nd placed teams), 3 from North/Central America (first 3 from the final group), 6 from South America, 5 from Africa (winners of each group), 4 from Asia (first 2 from each of the final 2 groups), 1 from Oceania and the host country, if it has to be there, otherwise a 5th Asian country, the winner of the play-off between the 3rd placed teams in the 2 final groups. If there will be 2 host countries, and they both have to automatically qualify, then only 5 will qualify from South America.