Do CONCACAF deserve four World Cup slots?

The news at the beginning of the week was that CONCACAF officials would lobby FIFA for a fourth direct qualifying place into the 2014 FIFA World Cup.  The argument that the officials made was that CONCACAF deserved an extra place on the basis of their performance in international competition (i.e. World Cup finals).  But do CONCACAF deserve four direct berths to the World Cup based on prior performance?  I decided to look into the numbers to find out.

I looked at the previous three World Cup finals (2002, 2006, 2010) and grouped the finalists by their confederations -- UEFA, CONMEBOL, CONCACAF, AFC, CAF, and OFC.  I tabulated the matches played by each team, their goals scored and allowed, and their points won over the competition (3-1-0).  If matches went to a penalty kick shootout, the match result is a draw per FIFA Laws of the Game.  The statistics were summed for each confederation and the total points scored by confederation representatives were divided by total matches played to get an average number of points per game won by a "representative" confederation team.

I will just show the points per game won by each confederation.  You can find the data set that I used here. (And here is a version for you guys who use Microsoft Excel.)

Confederation	2002	2006	2010
UEFA	1.419	1.758	1.574
CONMEBOL	1.700	1.882	1.731
CONCACAF	1.500	0.462	0.909
CAF	1.059	0.750	0.900
AFC	1.059	0.583	1.071
OFC	---	1.000	1.000

The data show that the World Cup remains one dominated by the teams from UEFA and CONMEBOL.  Having the World Cup finals in Asia went a long way toward equalizing the performances by teams from the various confederations, and that is reflected in the higher point averages for the confederations outside of Europe and South America.  The European World Cup was a huge advantage for the Big Two and demonstrated just how difficult it is for teams outside of those two regions to play well in European conditions.  Last year's World Cup was somewhat between the Asian and European World Cups in that it was played in the Southern Hemisphere but within the European time zones.  The performance of the teams outside Europe and South America recovered after 2006 and approached the level of performance for Japan/Korea 2002.  CONCACAF was guaranteed a place in the quarterfinal round in 2002, which made their point average look better than it really was.  (The USA-Mexico round of 16 match was the only time two teams from the same minor confederation met in the knockout round of the last three World Cups.)  Conversely for Asia, despite Japan advancing to the second round, and South Korea advancing to the semifinals, Asia's point average was on par with Africa's.  It was simply not a good tournament for Asian teams unless they were the hosts.

So what does this mean for CONCACAF?  Their point average took a big hit in Germany 2006, like all of the other minor confederations, but they returned to the pack in 2010.  Putting aside the 2002 finals, which were an anomaly for the North American region, there really isn't much of a difference between CONCACAF and the other confederations to justify an extra bid.  As a matter of fact, if there is one confederation that deserves an extra direct slot on the basis of performance, it is CONMEBOL.

Of course, all of this analysis really doesn't matter in the end, because re-allocation of qualifying slots in FIFA has much more to do with politics than on-field performance.  And that is why in my opinion Jack Warner and Chuck Blazer will focus more on CONCACAF actions off the football field in any presentations before the FIFA ExCo.

Comments

[Dave Clark]

Two federations that perform worse than CONCACAF get more slots than CONCACAF. Isn't that an issue?

[Eric]

@Dave Which two confederations are those? As Howard pointed out, the reason CONCACAF's number looks good in 2002 is because Mexico and the US played each other, guaranteeing a spot in the quarterfinal. If they had played teams from a different confederation and both had lost (something that wouldn't really have surprised), the number would be more in line with the other two 'worse' confederations. Then for '06 and '10, you have only ONE confederation worse than the US. Yes, it's a different one each time, but it's not possible to say, with certainty, that there are two confederations that are worse and get more slots.

I actually like some of the analysis I've seen by some people on Big Soccer. Using the 'last place teams' method. Because, really, that's what we're wondering. It's the borderline teams that we're quibbling over here. For '10, for example, did Costa Rica deserve to get in over North Korea (0 points, -11 GD)?

[Howard Hamilton]

Eric, that's a good point, and I had thought of analyzing the teams in the bottom 25% of their confederations, but I couldn't decide on how to handle UEFA teams. Now that I think some more about it, I could have just created a "composite" team from the bottom 3-4 European teams.

It's not just the bottom Asian and African teams that a fourth CONCACAF berth would compete against, it's the bottom (and possibly next-to-bottom) European team as well.