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Football fans are preparing to receive a new version of the World Cup, which will be held in November 2022 in Qatar, amid a state of anticipation for everyone.
The tournament will be the last to consist of 32 teams, before the start of the new system in 2026, with 48 teams.
invitation system
The first ever World Cup was held in 1930 in Uruguay, with only 13 teams participating.
There were no qualifiers to play in the tournament, and the system was then based on invitations from the participating countries from the International Federation.
The continent of Europe received 4 invitations, in addition to 2 invitations to North America, and 6 invitations to South America in addition to the host country.
The competition witnessed the absence of any team from the continents of Asia and Europe, due to the long distance and the inflexibility of movements like the current time.
Qualifiers start
The first match in the World Cup qualifiers was between Estonia and Sweden in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, with the host team winning 6/2.
At the time, the qualifiers were relied on, starting from the 1934 edition, in which 16 teams played, with only one seat for Asia and Africa, one for North America, two for South America, and the rest of the seats for Europe.
In the 1954 edition that was held in Europe, the number of participating teams was fixed at 16, with the continued European dominance and the weak appearance of Asia and Africa.
As for the 1982 edition of Spain, the number increased to 24 teams, with a larger presence for Asia and Africa with two teams each, with Europe also controlling 12.5 seats in addition to the title holder and 4 teams for South America.
The system that is currently adopted for the first time in France 1998 began with the domination of the continent of Europe, with African seats rising to number 5, with Asian seats reaching 4 and a half seats, with South America having the same number.
At the beginning of the World Cup, it was normal to have more than one team in the same continent in one group, but then this point was taken into account, and the groups were better distributed, with the seats calculated and divided according to the levels of each continent.
new system
Former UEFA president Michel Platini proposed in 2015 expanding the World Cup to 40 teams, with several proposals being discussed.
In the end, it was resorted to the implementation of the most prominent proposal to increase the teams to the number 48, with the teams divided into 16 groups of 3 teams.
This increases the number of matches played in the tournament in total from 64 to 80, but the number of matches that each team will play will remain seven, which is the same number in the current system.
Each team plays one less game in the group stage than the previous formula, in order to play the overtime role in the knockout stage. The tournament takes place within 32 days, just like the previous 32-team tournaments.
The tournament is scheduled to be played in 3 countries, namely the United States of America, Canada and Mexico, with 16 seats for Europe, 9 for Africa, 8 for Asia, 1 for Oceania, 6 for North America and the Caribbean, and 6 for South America.