Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
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Only on Thursday, March 30, the Bureau of the FIFA Council met to agree on a proposed slot allocation for the expanded 48 team FIFA World Cup as of the 2026 edition.
As per the proposal (Bureau of the FIFA Council recommends slot allocation for the 2026 FIFA World Cup!), the Asian Football Confederation would get eight direct slots out of the 48 slots available, a substantial increase from the current 4,5 slots.
Does that mean better chances for India to qualify for a FIFA World Cup?
In theory certainly, then eight slots instead of 4,5 slots means an increase of opportunities for Asian countries as is the case for other confederations around the world as well as 16 additional countries can qualify for the expanded 48 team FIFA World Cup.
But even eight nations from Asia getting into a FIFA World Cup means that only seven countries are allowed to be better than India for us to qualify. India only in 2001 for the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and South Korea was close to the final round of Asian qualifiers otherwise like for Russia 2018, India has been eliminated latest in the preliminary round group stage.
We need to be regulars in the AFC Asian Cup first, hopefully we will return to qualify for UAE 2019 and then wherever the 2023 edition will happen, so we get used to the big match atmosphere in Asia, which is usual for countries like Japan or South Korea.
India’s big economic rival China has been spending time, money and resources to qualify again for a FIFA World Cup since 2002, but a lot of things need to come together to get past the best in Asia with Japan, South Korea, Australia and Iran currently looking too strong for their opponents, then there are a group of four to eight nations in Asia, who make the second bracket and that is were India needs to be to get to qualify for a FIFA World Cup.
With an expanded FIFA World Cup and also depending on the Asian qualification format, India’s chances have increased but the Men in Blue need to be a Top 10 Asian nation in the qualifiers and tournaments, then only can we move ahead into the big league.
The dream of seeing the Indian senior national team playing a full FIFA World Cup lives on…
