CONMEBOL: Leave Our WC Qualifying Alone

“If it ain’t broke, fix it.” Or so says the High Tinkerer, Sepp Blatter. The South American football confederation, CONMEBOL, has expressed to FIFA its desire to maintain its current World Cup qualifying system. In South America, unlike, say, in Europe, all of the nations play one another in a home-and-home series, with the top four (or five) point earners advancing to the World Cup finals.

With the limited number of countries that compete in CONMEBOL, this system is fair and manageable. From FIFA’s perspective, I understand that the most important outcome is if Brazil and Argentina qualify for every World Cup. They’ve done just fine in this system, so no worries there. Also, Ecuador have qualified two years in a row, so it works for La Tri!