No plans to reduce Africa's World Cup slots
No plans to reduce Africa's WC slots
Posted: 2010-07-06 12:02
Fifa has assured the continent that there are no plans to reduce Africa's slots at future World Cup finals despite poor performances from African teams at this year's tournament in South Africa.
Despite having six teams representing Africa at the ongoing 2010 Fifa World Cup, five of the six nations were eliminated in the first round while the Black Stars of Ghana went out in the quarterfinals.
In response to suggestions that Africa would lose some of their allocated places at future tournaments, Fifa secretary general, Jerome Valcke, said this week that there was no such discussion.
"There is no discussion about slots for the future, we have 32 teams and we will have a meeting of the organising committee of the 2014 World Cup where we will discuss the rules and regulations, but there is no discussion at all about the number of slots per confederation. Anyone who is saying that is wrong.
"We need to continue supporting African football. There is not any discussion or reaction of that sort to say we will not have the same number of (African) teams next time around," Valcke said.
According to Valcke, one area where Fifa are planning further discussion and experimentation is with additional assistant referees, with a view to possibly introducing this for the 2014 World Cup.
"We can talk about refereeing decisions which, when you looked at them after the game, you could say were perhaps not good decisions. Additional assistants could happen in 2014, to make sure these kinds of things are not happening in refereeing.
"It does not mean the use of video, that is definitely not on the table today, but one thing we are discussing is two additional assistants to support referees to make decision-making easier and to have more eyes helping him to make such decisions. We knew this is where criticism would come."
Valcke also explained that the group phase of the tournament had proved that the other continents were catching up with Europe as only six European teams made it to the second round stage of the 2010 Fifa World Cup out of the 13 teams that qualified for the tournament.
He claimed that Europe's relatively weaker performance in the group phase could have something to do with the arduous European club season and he revealed that discussions would be held with the 32 World Cup coaches after the tournament regarding ways that could be found to increase preparation time for teams in future.
"This World Cup has shown that Asia is stronger, South America is very, very strong, we have the USA playing very well and it shows that Europe is not as strong as they were in the past.
"Some teams have not moved and not changed since 2006 and it shows also that these players have played a lot of games but most of the Brazil and Argentina players play in Europe," Valcke said.
The Fifa secretary general was generally happy with how the 2010 Fifa World Cup tournament has been going on from an organisational standpoint.
: 2010-07-06 14:07
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