The International Football Federations Thread

[Lineker]

Wales are one place behind Brazil after reaching an all-time high of eighth in the Fifa world football rankings. 

They stay above England, who remain at 10th; while Northern Ireland move up six places to 35th.

It is a six-year high for the Northern Irish, while Scotland are down nine to 40th and the Republic of Ireland slip three places to 54th,

World Cup winners Germany have moved back into second place in the rankings behind Argentina.

The new list takes into account the Euro 2016 qualifiers in September.

Wales won in Cyprus before a home draw with Israel brought them closer to qualification for their first major tournament since 1958.

Austria are celebrating their highest-ever placing at 11 after sealing a place at Euro 2016, while the biggest mover is Liberia, rising 65 places to 95.

Fifa rankings top 10
1 Argentina, 2 Germany, 3 Argentina, 4 Portugal, 5 Columbia, 6 Spain, 7 Brazil, 8 Wales, 9 Chile, 10 England

Selected others
17 Italy, 22 France, 35 Northern Ireland, 40 Scotland, 54 Republic of Ireland

[Benji]

If Wales are eighth and England are tenth then the quality of world football is more awful than I thought.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Benji

[DavidMarrio]

Fifa rankings are a load of shite anyway. 

[Lineker]

 

Quote

Wales have dropped out of the top 10 in the Fifa world football rankings despite qualifying for Euro 2016.

Chris Coleman's side fell to 15th from an all-time high of eighth in October.

Northern Ireland are up six places to 29th, two below their highest ranking, after also qualifying for Euro 2016.

England move up one place to ninth, Scotland fall four places to 44th, while Belgium top the rankings  for the first time in their history, ahead of Germany and previous leaders Argentina.

Republic of Ireland, who face a Euro 2016 play-off against Bosnia-Herzegovina, rose 12 places to 42nd.

Wales qualified for their first major tournament since 1958 despite a 2-0 defeat by Bosnia-Herzegovina last month, before beating Andorra.

Fifa rankings top 10
1 Belgium, 2 Germany, 3 Argentina, 4 Portugal, 5 Chile, 6 Spain, 7 Colombia, 8 Brazil, 9 England, 10 Austria

Selected others
16 Netherlands, 24 France, 29 Northern Ireland, 42 Republic of Ireland, 44 Scotland

 

[Benji]

On 01/10/2015 12:22:50, David Marrio said:

Fifa rankings are a load of shite anyway. 

 

[Lineker]

Fifa will continue to consider the expansion of the World Cup to 40 teams from 2026 – but a final decision has been deferred following Thursday’s executive committee meeting.

The committee discussed the dramatic expansion at a meeting on Thursday about a wider reform package – just hours after two more senior members were arrested in the lobby of the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich.

Fifa executives from Asia and Africa were understood to be strongly in favour of the idea. It also has the support of the Uefa general secretary Gianni Infantino and some of the other Fifa presidential candidates. But the plan has been sent back to the Fifa administration for further research because it has commercial ramifications as well as statutory ones.

Wolfgang Niersbach, the German Fifa executive committee member, said the main focal point of the meeting was a “very comprehensive reform package”.

He confirmed that the idea of expanding the World Cup was heavily backed by African and Asian members of the ex-co and would be passed back to Fifa administrators for “further consideration”.

The change is being seen as an attempt to appeal to the majority of the 209 Fifa members who feel Uefa currently has too many spots at the 32-team tournament. The World Cup was expanded from 24 teams to 32 in 1994 and the further expansion would allow Fifa to increase the number of slots available to those outside Europe.

Uefa will have 14 places at the next World Cup in Russia, up to 10 more than the next best-represented confederation. The Oceania Football Confederation currently has no guaranteed place.

At present Africa has five places, Asia four and a half, Europe 13, North and Central America three and a half, South America four and a half, Oceania half a place and one goes to the host.

The move was discussed as business continued as usual despite the dramatic arrests of two more executive committee members – the Concacaf president, Alfredo Hawit of Honduras, and the Conmebol president, Juan Ángel Napout of Paraguay. Both are planning to fight extradition to the US, the Swiss department of justice confirmed.

Expanding the World Cup to 40 teams, which would increase the total number of matches to 96, is seen as a potential sweetener to the majority of the 209 Fifa member associations to pass other sweeping reforms such as term limits.

The new Brazilian Fifa executive committee member Fernando Sarney confirmed the wider package of reforms had been approved, but that more detail had been asked for on the 40-team World Cup plan.

“They said they need more details some economic projections,” he said. “It is something in the package that we approved – the whole package has been approved but this matter has been reserved.”

Sarney said the atmosphere at Thursday’s executive committee meeting was funereal following the arrests.

“It was like someone had died, that was the atmosphere inside. Everybody was surprised, the feeling was like it’s happening again, that it’s something we think is personal. It was supposed to be a positive day today with the reforms and a lot changes, compliance, transparency,” said Sarney.

“It was a feeling that this has happened to somebody who was sitting there yesterday with us. Everybody is sad and knows what it represents.”

[Lineker]

Video replays for referees could be given a trial in the FA Cup from next season after the game’s law-making body decided to recommend large-scale live experiments.

Proposals to introduce video assistance for referees has gained rapid traction since the then Fifa president Sepp Blatter performed a U-turn and endorsed the idea in 2014, two years after the introduction of goalline technology.

The English Football Association has been a big supporter of the idea and following a meeting of the International FA Boards in London, the chief executive, Martin Glenn, said trials could begin as soon as next season if the idea was rubber-stamped at the Ifab AGM in March.

“I’m very happy for things within my direct control – the English FA’s direct control – to be part of that,” said Glenn. “We are big supporters of the use of technology. So, what do we control? We control the FA Cup.”

The Scottish FA will also hold talks about experimenting with the technology in next season’s Scottish Cup. If the live trials go ahead next season and are deemed successful, video assistance could be introduced worldwide in time for the 2018-19 season.

In terms of the Scottish Cup, the Scottish FA chief executive, Stewart Regan, said: “It’s one that we would certainly discuss as a board. As a personal preference, it’s something I’d like to see push forward.”

Big questions remain about the extent to which it might affect the flow of the game and the practicalities of ensuring that every ground was kitted out with cameras. The FA, however, is keen to be in the vanguard of testing the technology. The trials would be limited to decisions on goals, red cards, penalties and cases of mistaken identity.

They would involve different kinds of experiments, such as video only being used when the referee asks for assistance or, alternatively, where the video assistant would be allowed to flag up errors.

So-called “coach challenges” – which could result in each dugout being allowed to challenge a set number of decisions in every match – are not likely to be part of the first wave of trials.

Video decisions would be time limited and, unlike rugby, contentious decisions would not be replayed on big screens for the crowd to see but information relayed to the referee via an earpiece.

If introduced in the FA Cup, the idea would be to experiment in every match in which it was possible to do so – essentially those grounds equipped for television broadcasts. Ifab wants the tests to be as competition-wide as possible, ideally an entire season of a league or cup competition.

Jonathan Ford, chief executive of the Football Association of Wales, said that use of the technology would be limited to “very important, game-changing moments”.

He added: “The decision is to put a very strong recommendation to the AGM that this is accepted, that experimentation does happen.”

Ford said that they remained a long way from finalising how any future video refereeing system could work.

“The fluidity of the game is all important as is the ultimate authority of the referee,” he said. “Whatever system is finally adopted, assuming it eventually is, must reflect both of those principles.”

In February, Ifab ruled that it would delay trials of video technology for at least 12 months. The Dutch FA was keen to give a trial to the concept in Cup matches but Fifa said the decision should be put off for the time being. There is believed to be a stronger chance that at its AGM in Cardiff in March Ifab will decide to press ahead with the trials.

The board consists of four representatives – one from each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – and four from Fifa, each of which has equal voting rights.

David Elleray, the former Premier League referee who sits on Ifab’s technical subcommittee, said: “The main objective is to try to eliminate clear errors by the referee. You will never eliminate all errors from the game but this is a major step forward in reducing those errors.”

Ifab approved the use of goalline technology in 2012 and since then there have been an increasing number of calls from players and managers to use video technology in other aspects of the game.

[Lineker]

Kick-offs can now go backwards, and other rule changes newly approved

[Lineker]

Quote

The Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, has said before this weekend’s meeting of the game’s lawmakers that trials of video technology to assist officials should start “sooner rather than later”.

The International FA Board meet in Cardiff on Saturday and are expected to approve live trials of video technology, which could lead to it being used in the FA Cup next season. In a Fifa interview to mark his first day in office, Infantino said he was keen to begin trials but emphasised the need to protect the flow of the game.

“Football is a special game,” said Infantino, who was elected last Friday. “It’s the most beautiful and the most important sport in the world. We don’t have to kill football. One of the peculiarities of football is the flow of the game. It doesn’t stop like many other sports when you have to time to stop and look at a video.

“In football you have a flow, you have a referee who takes important decisions. So we need to see what type of impact any technological help will have on the flow. We need to start with serious tests sooner rather than later.”

The Swiss-Italian administrator sought to demonstrate his credentials as a fan and insisted he would try to involve supporters and players more in the decision-making. Fifa’s proposed reforms have been criticised for not doing enough to involve other stakeholders but Infantino said football’s leaders needed to be “more like fans, less like politicians”.

“I am a football fan as well,” said Infantino, who prevailed over the Bahraini Asian Football Confederation president, Sheikh Salman, in the race for the presidency. “I am like them. I am a supporter. I know what it means to travel miles and miles by plane or train to follow your team.

“We have to involve the fans, listen to them and what they say. Football without fans is nothing. We need the players, we need the fans. These two elements have been neglected for too long.”

Infantino also reiterated his support for controversial plans to increase the World Cup to 40 teams. “It’s not a secret that I believe in an increase in the number of teams to 40,” he said. “This means an increase in representation. We give eight more teams the opportunity to participate and many more teams the opportunity to participate.”

The Fifa president set one hare running by saying on Monday it was “fairly urgent” to get on with the bidding process for the 2026 World Cup, for which the United States is the favourite.

Some have linked that stance to the pivotal role played by the US in securing his electoral victory, persuading Prince Ali’s backers to switch sides in the second round.

Infantino had said the bidding process would likely be launched “in the next couple of months”. A Fifa spokeswoman said no timetable had been set and discussions would continue in the coming weeks.

Infantino also again highlighted the key campaign pledge that helped him to victory – more than doubling the football grants delivered to Fifa’s 209 members to $5m over four years. He said it was important the money was invested according to need.

“I have been travelling a lot,” he said. “I have seen with my eyes what the needs are. We can do a lot with very little. We need to invest into tailor-made programmes for each country. The needs are not the same in Bhutan, in Madagascar, in Switzerland or Paraguay. We have to target each country specifically.”

[stokeriño]

So apparently FFP is still a thing (or at least to those clubs who can't cook their books properly), because Turkish media are reporting that UEFA have handed Galatasaray a one-year ban from European competition for failing to comply with the financial rules.

[Lineker]

Two-year ban.

[Lineker]

Quote

An additional fourth substitute will be allowed in extra-time in matches played at this summer’s Rio Olympics and at the Club World Cup later in the year.

The game’s law-making body the International Football Association Board (IFAB) approved trials of an extra substitute when games go into an additional half-hour, and the executive committee of football’s world governing body has now announced plans to introduce it into a number of its competitions.

A Fifa statement read: “Following the recent decision by the IFAB to allow experimentation with a fourth substitution in extra-time, the Fifa executive committee agreed for such experiments to be conducted this year at the Olympic football tournaments, the Fifa Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Papua New Guinea and the Fifa Club World Cup in Japan.”

The Fifa ExCo was meeting for the final time before it is replaced by the new-look Fifa Council at the organisation’s next Congress in Mexico in May.

It also supported the governing body’s efforts to reclaim funds lost due to the corrupt conduct of former Fifa members, agreed kick-off times for matches at the 2018 World Cup in Russia and approved the 2015 financial and governance report.

 

[Adam]

That's a great idea, but only if it's enforced that you get the one extra and that's it, you can't leave your other subs until ET and still use them. Otherwise you could try and change more than a third of your team for fresh players after 90 minutes.

[MDK]

5 minutes ago, Adam said:

That's a great idea, but only if it's enforced that you get the one extra and that's it, you can't leave your other subs until ET and still use them. Otherwise you could try and change more than a third of your team for fresh players after 90 minutes.

No. Make it so that you can have a fourth substitute but it has to be the manager.

[Adam]

That might work for Leyton Orient right now, but I'm not sure Leeds United will be wanting that one whilst Evans is in charge.

[MDK]

19 minutes ago, Adam said:

That might work for Leyton Orient right now, but I'm not sure Leeds United will be wanting that one whilst Evans is in charge.

How dare you see thru my idea like a wet tissue.

[Colly]

47 minutes ago, Adam said:

That's a great idea, but only if it's enforced that you get the one extra and that's it, you can't leave your other subs until ET and still use them. Otherwise you could try and change more than a third of your team for fresh players after 90 minutes.

What's wrong with that? You can do 3 at once at the moment, and what if you get two injuries in extra time with subs remaining? Defeats the object.

[Adam]

For the reason that I mentioned there. It is one of the things that they're looking at with this trial, I guess I didn't think of the fact that if a team doesn't use all their subs now they can use them in extra time though.

This is why I'm not part of IFAB that sorts these ideas out. Well, one of the reasons anyway

[Matt]

4 hours ago, Adam said:

That might work for Leyton Orient right now, but I'm not sure Leeds United will be wanting that one whilst Evans is in charge.

I'm not sure it'd make much difference. If nothing else he might have a heart attack and have to leave on medical grounds.

[Lineker]

Quote

The World Cup finals could be expanded to include 40 teams in 2026, the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, said in Montevideo on Tuesday, adding that South America would be given five places.

Infantino, elected present of the world governing body in February, said: “We must open the finals up to more teams. The idea would be from 2026. We’re going to talk about this with everyone: players, the Fifa council. Not only do you give lots of teams the possibility of taking part, but also to many of dreaming of a place in the finals.”

The finals have had 32 teams since 1998 and the champions, who used to automatically qualify as holders, have had to go into the qualifying phase from the 2006 tournament. Infantino said he did not plan to change this policy under the new plans.

South America has four automatic berths and one in an intercontinental playoff for a 32-team tournament.

“My proposal for South America is five fixed places and maybe one more to play for on the pitch,” Infantino explained. He did not say how the eight new places would be distributed or played for.

The hosts for the 2026 finals have yet to be voted on while the 2018 tournament will be held in Russia and 2022 in Qatar.