Topic: FIFA World Cup 2026 :Canada/Mexico/United States: Discussion Thread - page 276. (Read 66093 times)

There are going to be 48 teams in fifa 2026 and 3 teams will be from host countries Canada, Mexico,  USA  that's OK I guess and these teams will perform how they performed in last fifa so that's fair I guess and no one will be treated unfairly.
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I never said anything against Qatar auto-qualifying for the 2022 World Cup. It is just one team, and I guess they deserve a slot after spending close to $300 billion for the world cup. But in 2026, the tournament will be hosted by a total of 3 countries. Giving automatic slots to all the three countries will reduce the chances of others in the CONCACAF Confederation. And similarly, 4 for the 2030 World Cup sounds absurd for me. It will reduce the chances of other teams to almost zero. IMO, there should be a playoff between the four teams, and only two among them should automatically qualify.

Absolutely.

There's no way a country that is hosting the world cup won't participate in it. They are putting a lot of money into the tournament so of course they're going to be there.

That was the only way Qatar was able to play at the World Cup actually.

@Sithara007 this was actually a very interesting question and I asked it myself, but a quick google search gave this:

"World Cup: USA, Canada & Mexico will auto-qualify for 2026"

It seems that there have been some discussion about it, but when you give it some deeper consideration any other solution would have been unfair. It has been the rule for so long that the hosting nation is auto-qualified. Now even if it is three countries hosting this World Cup, I 100% agree with the decision to allow all of them to auto-qualify. It is an event that no hosting nation wants to miss and all hosting nations are so eagerly looking forward to.

Imagine what would happen if one of the countries failed in the qualification? I would say that that would be a very sad event and it would also suppress the overall mood among the fans in that country. You want the home fans and the whole hosting nation to be as deeply involved in the tournament as possible. All of that is in support of the enthusiasm and empathy among the guests and the people from the hosting nation.

So yes, all of them are auto-qualified.

It may also negatively influence but knowing how good the Japanese people to solve problems is, I would have expected them to build a lot of football places on the roofs of buildings or indoors, so they can play, practice and fall in love with the game.

It must be something like, the view on football the average Japanese family has. In Latin America, if a child starts practicing football and keeps it until the beginning of their adulthood, it is not frown upon. On the other hand , I have gotten the impression that the Japanese parents expect their children to go for a more orthodox career, like law, medicine, biology, economics...

But that's not right to get for the host teams to get a qualification without playing any matches while all other American teams should race for the qualification where is not any special thing about the team who hosts the world cup, they just invest some money and build stadiums for the games while they will pay back what they invested when the tournament started, but getting qualified is not something they should get without racing like the other teams, not just about this world cup but about all other world cups. 

I don't agree with your argument. Out of the 4 countries mentioned here (Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay), only two managed to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. And for the 2030 edition, the 4 slots will be reduced from the quota for CONMEBOL, which means that only two countries (including Brazil) will be able to qualify from CONMEBOL qualifiers. In my opinion, this is very unfair for the other teams such as Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Since Brazil is almost certain to qualify, there is going to be fierce competition for the sole remaining slot.

There’s no cause to worry in this kinda of situation. I think FIFA will look to expand the of the host continent by providing them more slots at the play offs. Although if we look at this four countries they have been the ones that usually qualifies in almost every edition. So having other countries to go through qualification with is exception of one is likely to be more biased than offering them slot.

In my opinion, the host countries should automatically be qualified, without any exceptions, even if there are 4 host countries.
Just an observation, FIFA is reluctant to make the world cup with 4 countries, I don't know if this can be the tie-breaking factor for a possible choice.

If there is a World Cup in a country and this country does not participate, you can imagine that there will not be so much appeal to the inhabitants of that country, disfiguring one of the main purposes of the competition which is to promote soccer in these places. Other things like sponsorship, support and interest would suffer greatly.
So at this point I support automatic qualification yes, after all the country in question has a huge job to do to host a cup, and deserves the spot.

Despite being 4 countries, they are very close to each other in South America, making transportation and logistics much easier, unlike in 2026 where there are 3 countries of continental proportions.

You must also remember that automatic slots are counted and subtracted from the traditional slots of each federation.
In the next World Cup, CONCACAF will have 3 direct and one contested spot.

About this:
I think that the ones who suffer the most from this issue are the qualified teams themselves, since they will not participate in a championship worth qualifying at a high level.
The only thing left to do is to play friendly matches, against weaker teams in general, and this can harm the 4-year project that the teams are doing.

Yeah, well, if 2026 happens and we have 3 countries qualifying plus a load of new countries qualifying, then I don't see why not having 4 countries hosting the next world cup.

I think it's a bit weird, but that's the reality we're facing at the moment.

My prediction is that one country is going to be the main host of the world cup while other countries will just assist them with hosting and that country will be qualified for the world cup in 2026. Otherwise, if indeed four countries host the world cup at the same time, then I guess they will have to get qualifying for the world cup. However, this will not be good because there will be four American teams that will be qualified without racing against other teams.

If 4 countries are co-hosting the tournament, does all of them get automatic qualification? For the 2026 FIFA World Cup, all the three hosts (United States, Canada and Mexico) have been granted automatic entry, which has been criticized by a lot of people. But this will be even more tricky. If they grant automatic entry for a total of 4 teams, then it will reduce the importance of qualifying tournament. IMO, only one host should be given this right, and others should earn their place through participating in the qualifying tournament.

A joint South American world cup would be amazing to celebrate the centenary of the world cup.

I hope they actually end up winning, that would be very fitting.

While it is true that the quota for Asia has been increased from 2026 edition onwards, I would still claim that the continent continues to be under-represented. Asia is given 8 1⁄3 slots for 2026, while Africa is being provided with 9 1⁄3 slots. Why a larger quota for AFC? Asia is home to more than half of the world's population and they should have been given at least the same number of slots as CAF. Under the current system, CAF will witness the maximum increase in representation for the 2026 World Cup, as their quota goes up to 9 1⁄3 from 5.

I would very much like the 2030 World Cup to be held again in South America, where it all began.
So far most competitions have taken place in Europe.
The last two that took place in South America were Brazil in 2014 and Argentina in 1978.

As far as I know... Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay already launched their joint bid to host the 2030 World Cup last year. This candidacy was made official at the Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, where Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 in the 1930 World Cup final and became the first world champion.

It would be very impressive if the centenary were held there and the final match in that same stadium.

Yeah, but they were not in that situation about a hundred years ago. The World Cup started in 1930, that's 93 years ago. At that time Japan didn't have the current issue of aging population.

They were not interested really, while countries like Uruguay were hosting it:



As you can see, there was no interest at all from Japan at this stage:



This made me remember that in 2 world cups, 2030, we will be celebrating 100 years from the original world cup.

Very true but to a certain degree it is also dependent on the geographic conditions of a country. That doesn't apply to most indoor sports, except for hockey, which is a good example for being a favorite sport in countries where there are mostly cold temperatures. The United States is a bit of an outlier.

In soccer it's not surprising that it is the most favorite sport where the weather is mediterranean. That was the case for a very long time as temperature does play a big role when it comes to sports and whether they can be played in a location or not. Only due to advanced technology in stadium construction it is now possible that you could have soccer in extremely warm areas as we have seen with the last World Cup.

The upcoming World Cup takes place in great locations. It is not necessarily mediterranean weather there, but it is also not hot like in the desert. It's going to be an enjoyable event for everyone. Countdown is running, only 3.5 years to go!

While soccer is by far the most popular sport around the world, different countries have different sports they consider their national sports, for example at Russia their national sports are hockey and weightlifting, at India we have cricket, at USA we have football, baseball and basketball, European countries dominate the Winter Olympics, so it is natural that countries with a lot of people and resources are not able to compete at soccer which has a very long tradition at Europe and South America countries.

Yes, the 2026 world cup still has a long time lag, with an increase in quota rations for Asian countries. at least we will witness first, when the teams mentioned in this post play their matches at the 2023 Asian Cup.

even the Qatar national team, has the potential to qualify and take part in the 2026 world cup later. because, after all they were the 2019 Asian Cup finalists who toppled the teams we mentioned in this thread. or maybe, team squads from other Asian countries also have the opportunity to qualify for the World Cup later. so, I will not speculate in advance, despite the fact, Japan, Iran, South Korea, Australia, Saudi Arabia, are teams that have always been representatives of Asian countries that have qualified for the World Cup championship tournament.

I'm not gonna say Asia doesn't have a strong team but even the first team of Asia can't have much chance to pass the staging group of the world up compared to the European teams and that's mostly because of the different standards they have in Asia and Europe, so I guess even in 2026 we should wait for a miracle to see an Asian team even passing the staging group.