Anybody who has just endured the Denmark-France snoozefest - booing fans, second-string teams who have no incentive to win the match - should worry such matches will become A LOT more frequent in future World Cups. Here's why:
FIFA wants to boost the World Cup from 32 to 48 teams, if not in Qatar 2022 (Qatar isn't keen) then for NAFTA 2026. But to keep match numbers down to reasonable levels, the format will be 16 groups of three teams.
But 3-team groups mean you can't have all the teams play their last group match simultaneously. Obviously. So the last group game in all 16 games will be subject to collusion: one type of result (like a draw) would be good enough to ensure both teams go through.
Such set-ups for full matches exist in the current system (like France-Denmark today) but are rare. Under the new format they would be the norm. For 16 matches.
In some instances teams would know they were already knocked out (who cares) or qualified (rest your players), but many more matches would kick off with both teams aiming for a draw. A 0-0 draw, most likely. Just what the fans love. See what they are saying about France-Denmark.
The team NOT playing in the last group game has a massive information disadvantage. That impacts how you play: do you press for the win or is a draw good enough. With simultaneous final group matches that doesn't happen.
You can have other 48-team formats but they add matches to an already long tournament. 12 groups of 4 (best 4 losers qualify) would require 72 qualifying matches, up from 48 now. 16 groups of 3 would also equate to 48 matches (though fewer matches per team).
You basically cannot get over this problem. A bigger World Cup would either take a very long time to play or be decided in part by lots of matches in which neither team wants to win.
FIFA obviously hopes that adding teams will mean more chances for the likes of China, US and perhaps India to qualify. Nothing inherently wrong with that. But it is pretty clear the expansion will threaten the integrity of the tournament.
It's a spectacular own-goal in the making. There are other issues, not least 16 teams leaving after just two matches of football. But the I-don't-need-to-win problem is the most intractable.
Check out @julienguyon1977's feed, he is a mathematician who has tackled this issue every which way. Lots of constructive suggestions on how to tackle it in the links on his feed, but I don't see how any of them work.
If you thought this thread was long, boring and pointless: trust me it was no worse than future World Cup games under the proposed set-up.
