O/T - James Lawton: It's been a great Euros – so now Uefa will ruin it with 24 teams

Good Read!!

It may not be quite as revolting as Fifa's decision to hawk the World Cup to the desert, gay-bashing plutocrats of Qatar – but then it is quite hard to imagine anything matching such money-grubbing squalor.


Linky

There are only 53 member countries, so that’s nearly half qualifying.

Other than giving Wales a chance of actually qualifying for something, it’s a feckin’ stupid idea.

Euro 2012 has been pretty good so far due to the lack of teams just making up the numbers.

In recent times, the Copa America has gone to the extreme of adding guest teams from outside the South American confederation to make up the numbers to 12.

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/uefa-defends-euro-expansion-122407248.html

"Expanding the European Championship to 24 teams won't spoil the tournament or dilute its quality but it will allow more major nations to take part, Euro 2012 director Martin Kallen said on Friday.
"At the moment we have the best teams here, but there are great teams who are not," he said, listing Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Norway as examples.
"The Scots are also not here - they bring a lot of emotions, a lot of atmosphere with them……" added Kallen.

WTF?
Some of the sides mentioned have been good in the past (e.g. when Romania had Hagi, etc), but they don't have much to offer now.
Feckin stinks of trying to increase TV rights revenue.

Ireland qualified thru the play-offs by beating Estonia - hardly a footballing powerhouse and had their pants pulled down. Embarrassing. If UEFA want more money they should run a shield competition for all the other countries. Wales might qualify for that.

G-ster wrote:http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/uefa-defends-euro-expansion-122407248.html

"Expanding the European Championship to 24 teams won't spoil the tournament or dilute its quality but it will allow more major nations to take part, Euro 2012 director Martin Kallen said on Friday.
"At the moment we have the best teams here, but there are great teams who are not," he said, listing Switzerland, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Slovenia and Norway as examples.
"The Scots are also not here - they bring a lot of emotions, a lot of atmosphere with them……" added Kallen.

WTF?
Some of the sides mentioned have been good in the past (e.g. when Romania had Hagi, etc), but they don't have much to offer now.
Feckin stinks of trying to increase TV rights revenue.

Impossible not to by definition - Top 16 becomes Top 24. :joker:

I read this earlier, it's a great article. Despite it being more likely that Wales would qualify it will ruin the competition. What a fucking idiotic idea.

UEFA are a shambles all round.

It's like the European Cup/Champions League crap all over again. The Chumps League is such a bore these days until the quarters and it goes on and on like bloody X-Factor.

Whatever happened to, if it ain't broke don't fix it?

We still wouldn't qualify.