European Championships set to increase to 24 teams for 2016

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The European Championships look certain to be expanded from 16 to 24 teams after the proposal today won universal support from Uefa's 53 member countries.

A final decision will be taken by Uefa's executive committee in September but there was no opposition to the plan when it was raised at a meeting of association presidents and general secretaries in Vienna today.

The change would come into force for Euro 2016 and was originally put forward by the Scottish FA last year. Their chief executive Gordon Smith said he was delighted by the response. "It's something Uefa has seen no real disadvantage to - it will only means a few extra days of the tournament and there is no down side in terms of loss of revenue.

"The feeling in the meeting was everyone else was in favour as well. There's an appetite for it, everyone appreciated the advantages and no one spoke against it.

"It will make the qualifying competition more attractive as more teams come into the mix and that will keep the group alive longer.

"We just missed out for this tournament behind Italy and France but under the proposed new regulations we would have qualified."

An Italian Football Federation spokesman said: "It was 100%, it will happen for 2016 and it will boost the smaller nations."

Uefa president Michel Platini had earlier insisted that increasing the size of the tournament would not affect the quality of the competition.

He said: "Remember, I won the Euros [in 1984] when there were only eight teams. It is not certain it was better with eight teams than 16 or that 16 is better than 24 or 32 or 54.

"I am not worried about the quality by increasing the number of teams. Countries like England, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Serbia, Ukraine and Bulgaria all have the ability to participate in a European Championship.

"Would they reduce the quality of the Euro? I believe they have the quality to take part. There are teams that could be at the Euros and even enhance the quality of the competition."

The European Championship finals were between just four teams from 1960 until 1976, and that rose to eight teams in 1980. The first 16-team finals were at Euro 96 in England.

Totally opposed (even though Ultonia would presumably have qualified for these finals). As others have mentioned, variously,

a) you simply wouldn't be able to stage the tournament anywhere beyond the big five in Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, England, Spain)

b) assuming six groups, four best third place finishers progressing and a round of 16, there'd be 20 extra matches (and the tournament would likely last an extra 10 days, as per WC 1994)

c) the quality would inevitably be diluted with half the teams in the finals

d) the bigger countries wouldn't necessarily want to continue with qualifying groups of six and three qualifying. They're under pressure from their bigger clubs to cut international football, not expand it. You might find qualifying cut to say, eleven groups of only four or five teams. So possibly only six matches in qualifying- could be a significant loss of income

e) since the Euros expanded top 16 finalists, 24 different teams (I'll check) have qualified anyway. You don't need to increase the size of the finals to have a wide spread of teams over three or four tournaments.

perfectly stated argument by Pieter. Only thing that may be in its favour is if Scotland qualify... or possibly Wales (or either version of Ireland).

And the tickets were easier to get.

And if we could be guaranteed 8 leagues of 3 with no 'meaningless' matches. Which might work.

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And if we could be guaranteed 8 leagues of 3 with no 'meaningless' matches. Which might work

Thanks Gero. Although if A beats B then A beats C, B versus C is meaningless (in the sense of affecting progress) as A will already have qualified. Unless the schedule's fixed, there's a one third chance of the strongest team in each pool playing in both the first two games.

True. But shorter groups, and all the 'mugs' (eg Scotland) get kicked early, and then its a knockout.

there would certainly be a logistic problem about which stadia could hold which number of fans and policing etc, so I dunno.

gerontophile wrote:
[quote]perfectly stated argument by Pieter. Only thing that may be in its favour is if Scotland qualify... or possibly Wales (or either version of Ireland).

Surely that other country that shares this sceptered isle would benefit also? Other than that I'm pretty much in agreement too.

I made my views on this pretty clear on the other thread where it was mentioned. There simply is no decent format for 24 teams, that doesn't result in some inequity or other. Groups of 3 inevitably end up with a final match that doesn't matter equally to both teams, as it ideally should. If team B and team C have already lost to team A, the game's dead; if B lost to A and C drew with or beat A, the game doesn't matter to team B but does to C and also C know exactly what score they need to qualify; or, even where B and C have both beaten A, one of them will usually know that a draw is good enough in the last match because of goal difference. Memorably, I suppose, this latter scenario was the case in possibly the best game ever played, Italy-Brazil in 1982, where it was Brazil who just needed the draw but lost.

Any attempt to start with 6 groups of 4 and turn it into a knockout means some form of "lucky losers". If you have 2 best runners-up going into quarter-finals, like in the Heineken Cup (and the days when the CL was 24 clubs), you have lots of "groups of death" - more exciting potentially, but there would be a lot of good teams eliminated far too early - in these championships, for example, if you imagine two extra groups where the top 2 both finished on 7 points, then none of Germany, Turkey, Italy or Russia would have been in the quarter-finals. The "4 best 3rd place" teams (leading to a last 16) idea opens up the possibility of teams qualifying with just 1 draw - again, add on my theoretical two extra groups to Euro 2008, and imagine 2 extra 3rd place teams with 1 point but terrible goal differences, then Austria would have got through this time.

Adding even four extra finalists would cause huge problems. They'd presumably be in four groups of five, which would have the same problem that Gero and Rogin cover. Not everyone would finish the group at the same time, with obvious possibilities for contrived results. And there'd be sixteen extra matches- basically 50% more. You'd likely need three or four extra stadia. Where would they have been this time? The ex-Arnie Schwarzenegger, Graz? Bern? High in the mountains of Liechtenstein, yo-de-lo-de-lay?

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

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Groups of 3 inevitably end up with a final match that doesn't matter equally to both teams, as it ideally should. If team B and team C have already lost to team A, the game's dead; if B lost to A and C drew with or beat A, the game doesn't matter to team B but does to C and also C know exactly what score they need to qualify; or, even where B and C have both beaten A, one of them will usually know that a draw is good enough in the last match because of goal difference. Memorably, I suppose, this latter scenario was the case in possibly the best game ever played, Italy-Brazil in 1982, where it was Brazil who just needed the draw but lost.

In 1982, the format for the 2nd round groups was that the team who lost the first match (A vs B) would then have to play in the second match, against C.

For example, Belgium lost 3-0 to Poland in the first game in their group, so they, and not the Poles, had to face the USSR a few days later. This kept the competitive element alive going into the last game.

Lots were drawn before A vs B to pick which one of them would play C first in the event of A vs B ending in a draw. This is why West Germany, and not England, played Spain in the Bernabeu in the second game in their group, after the two former outfits had played out a 0-0 draw.

Anyway, this is a fucking terrible idea, and if Platini is holding up Belgium and Ireland and Serbia as the sort of teams who would enhance the tournament then it says it all about how much thought has gone into this.

Sixteen teams is just enough, even though each year it means the presence of two or three sides who end up bringing nothing to the competition (Greece and Poland this year). This is going to be a logistical nightmare and will end up wrecking the quality of the competition.

The only point in favour I can think of is that it doesn't seem right to me that for UEFA affiliated countries, the World Cup Finals are not really any harder to qualify for than the Euros (14 countries succesfully qualified for Euro 2008 and 13 European teams qualified for WC'06). In comparison 15 teams qualify for the African Nations Cup but Africa only has five places allotted in the big one

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or possibly Wales

We'll find a way not to qualify.

For example, UEFA will change the seeding system and we'll be in a group with Italy, Germany, Holland, Spain, Brazil and Argentina.

AMMS wrote:
[quote]gerontophile wrote:

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perfectly stated argument by Pieter. Only thing that may be in its favour is if Scotland qualify... or possibly Wales (or either version of Ireland).

Surely that other country that shares this sceptered isle would benefit also? Other than that I'm pretty much in agreement too.

If thats the case, I am going to permanently have the hump with you and your birching.

Scotland's FA originally put this forward. As they have not qualified since 1996, I am not suprised they did this. Look out for your own, and all that.

I believe the Scots would have qualified had this format been in favour now. In a strange way having France in the finals, when they lost home and away to Scotland shows they could hold their own.