Jean-Baptiste Sarrazin, with Jacques Vendroux and Cyrille de La Morinerie
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5:23 p.m., April 04, 2023
“It’s not a bit too much, it’s way too much”. The former Fifa president didn’t mince words in an exclusive interview with Europe 1 Sport (every evening from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. live on Europe 1). The former world football leader criticized the increase from 32 to 48 teams at the next World Cup in 2026 which will be co-hosted by three countries: the United States, Canada and Mexico. A choice endorsed by the FIFA Council in 2017 and approved by the current president of the body Gianni Infantino.
But for Sepp Blatter, this change of system is incomprehensible, even inconceivable: “I don’t understand how an organization like Fifa, a body that has competent people and a certain wisdom, allows things to go to ever greater heights, always higher like that. It’s bad”, lamented the one who led the organization which governs world football from 1998 to 2015. For Sepp Blatter, increasing the number of nations at the World Cup, “it’s bad for the soccer.”
A “question of quality”
This new format thus makes it necessary to review the course of the World Cup, which since 1998 has provided for a group stage with eight groups of four teams, the first two winning their ticket for the round of 16. From now on, the first two of each group as well as “the eight best third” will reach the sixteenth finals. The number of matches will therefore increase considerably, going from 64 to 104 matches. An upheaval for the players who will have to reduce their rest time and chain more playing times. For Sepp Blatter, with 32 teams, the schedule “was reasonable even if it was limited”. Because for the former president of the world body, this increase in the number of matches will also have repercussions on the quality of play.
For Sepp Blatter, the transition to 48 teams automatically induces a drop in the level of play. The former leader is certain, the 16 new teams will necessarily be of a lower level than the others, which, consequently, will give rise to matches technically poorer in the field. According to him, the players will also be more tired which will be felt at the end of the competition. “Why not do like a Grand Slam and play with 108 or even 128 teams”, he then quipped to caricature this new functioning. For him, introducing 16 new teams into the World Cup “is not smart”.
“We don’t think anymore”
Sepp Blatter also questions the organization of the next World Cup. While the 2022 World Cup took place in Qatar, “in a small country”, where everything “worked well”, the next event will take place in three countries at the same time: the United States, Canada and Mexico. “It’s a continent, North America. I don’t understand this choice,” protested the 87-year-old man. “We are no longer thinking,” he protested sharply criticizing the choices of Fifa and in particular those of his successor Gianni Infantino with whom he has complex relations.
“It’s a huge continent, it doesn’t hold. We don’t understand why” this choice. Sepp Blatter implies that these repeated movements will probably impact the organisms of the players. “We don’t think anymore”, ended up concluding the former strongman of Fifa.