FIFA set to make a decision this month on World Cup 2026 Group Stage format

Someone should ask Gianni Infantino if we should remove corner flags. I mean, they do get in the way. All that flapping around annoys me, so I think we should get rid. And while we’ve hired the removal van, take away the crossbar, and the nets, just leave the two posts where they are. Actually, I’ve had a thought: do we really need a referee? We’re all mature people, deciding how football should be played, so why don’t we just leave it down to the players instead?

Gianni Infantino’s insistence on grabbing the spinning pottery football on the wheel and crushing it between his fingers like dog dirt in a plastic bag is making his hands all dirty. And worst of all, I don’t know if he realises just how much everyone would like him to take his foot off the pedal. Take the most recent World Cup, for instance.

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Has someone mentioned to him that football is quite good as it is?

In December, we saw what will inevitably go down as one of the great football tournaments of all time: it was, at a minimum, the greatest World Cup final ever to be played, with the two figures who represent the present and future of football going head to head all the way until penalties, ending in the most dramatic fashion the sport allows. But it was played in a desert with shipping containers and luxury yachts for hotels, beer Erwin Schrödinger would be proud of that you both could and couldn’t buy, and a huge World Cup trophy that Morgan Freeman introduced to everyone. Or was that part a dream?

Even the first stage of the World Cup was impressively tense, with plenty of teams vying for second place in the groups going into the third and final games of the round. Mexico, had they beaten Saudi Arabia along with a Polish victory over Argentina, meant El Tri would have gone through. Alas, it didn’t happen, but the exciting permutations that were jingling in front of us had us all scrambling around to tot up the yellow cards in the final countdown of the two simultaneous games. There were even the possibility of drawing lots! With straws! Who brought the straws? I don’t know, but it was incredibly fun.

And so, as a result of that mind-blowing drama and last-minute madness, FIFA’s idea has been to expand the World Cup and throw the entire format under not just a bus, but a big American RV. The new system was laid out: 32 teams would become 48 and 8 groups of 4 would become 16 groups of 3. But nobody told Gianni that more football does not necessarily equal more fun. Gianni’s graph was wrong.

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FIFA to hold a meeting in Rwanda to solve the issue

Now, however, it seems as though somebody has had the idea that a third of the teams flying home after one round may not be the best solution after all. Expanding the number of teams but enlarging the groups does come with some concerns, such as the length of the tournament, given the huge geographical distances concerned between Mexico, Canada and the USA as well as two group games for each side turning into three.

A meeting will be held in Rwanda on March 16 that will decide on what to do, whether to keep fondling with the pottery or just to leave it alone.