After the annual congress of the organisation a fortnight ago, Karl Heinz Rummenigge, their President, confirmed that they would no longer be willing to release players for “nonsense” friendlies. They were though, quick to point out that they were happy and willing to cooperate with international qualifying tournaments. But they laid down a marker with the suggestion that no more than six international dates should be played a year, eight in the case of major tournaments, with two of those prior to the World Cup or European Championships (or Copa America).
This means that just two options would be available to the organisers of international competitions; play qualifying groups in Europe of four or five teams, or abolish international friendlies. It could be a welcome relief for managers sick of seeing their assets heading off thousands of miles away just before the new season starts in August, or just weeks after the season’s end in those years without major international tournaments. As Rummenigge pointed out, some managers of internaitonal teams, as Fabio Capello indicated himself, may be in favour of less being more.
Yet the moves to try and limit the amount of international football played could come up against an intractable stumbling block. For one thing, smaller nations are unlikely to be happy with such a move. For the likes of Malta or San Marino, playing fewer games means fewer possibility to raise much needed revenues.
And for a second thing, South America’s World Cup qualifiers can’t be played in such a narrow timeframe. Usually an 18 game programme (though 16 as Brazil qualify for the next competition as hosts), this would not be able to fit in what is a two and a half year window in which such qualifiers can take place.
As such South America would need to either split into two groups of five instead of the one group, or to start qualifying earlier. But the latter is impractical because of the Copa America, which directly precedes qualifying, and the former is unlikely too. The format of one group of 10 is both lucrative and competitively useful for the smaller nations. The likes of Ecuador and Venezuela have made massive strides in recent years thanks to the introduction of the one group, as it means they have guaranteed revenue from at least four games with Argentina and Brazil, as well as giving them more competitive practise against top teams.
To imagine these sides voting to give that up is fanciful at best. The ECA have a laudable goal, and it seems eminently sensible to limit pointless internationals. One cannot help but feel though, that their battle is doomed to failure; turkeys will never vote for Christmas.
