Brazil and South American WC Qualifying

Brazil has been playing most of its friendlies in Europe lately, and the CBF says don’t look for that to change in the near future. Of course most of Brazil’s star players ply their trade in Europe. But more to the point, CBF president Ricardo Teixeira says that this concession is designed to encourage European countries to “drop their opposition to the South American World Cup qualifying system in which the 10 teams play each other twice over a period of nearly three years.”

Is this what is happening? Or is Brazil just making a cash grab? And anyway, I thought that FIFA/UEFA was set to approve the SA qualifying setup, which after all is much fairer than the European system since every team plays every other team home and home.

Anyway, I can’t argue that Ecuador playing Brazil in Scandanavia earlier this year wasn’t a good shot o’ publicity and experience for La Tricolor.