merging the gold cup and the copa america

[Rahj]

based on the discussion in the messi thread, i came up with a great idea to get rid of the inequality of opponents between south american and european teams.
they simply have to merge the two existing continental championships in america to have a panamerican championship. in total, comembol and concacaf have 51 teams in their federation, which should be enough to have a qualification round before the actual tournament. this way, messi, neymar and suarez could get more games against your beloved cannon fodder. joke aside, i think this idea is worth thinking about.

 

[pacp_96]

Would be South American domination. Not a bad idea though.

 

[Rahj]

the gold cup is usa/mexico domination.

the quali could be set up as follows: 50 teams (host excluded) play in 10 groups with 5 teams each. teams are drawn from 5 pots based on the world ranking. the group winners will qualify, the runner ups will have to play play-offs.

 

[pacp_96]

Similar to Europe then.

 

[Rahj]

pretty much, though travelling distances would be an issue.

 

[pacp_96]

True.

The African Cup of Nations always seems like it needs changing IMO. Is there any reason in particular as to why they play it in January/February?

 

[Rahj]

as of now, the pots would look like this.

Pot 1 argentina, columbia, brazil, uruguay, chile, costa rica, mexico, usa, chile, ecuador

Pot 2 peru, panama, honduras, guatemala, paraguay, venezuela, el salvador, antigua barbuda, trinidad tobago, bolivia

Pot 3 jamaica, st. vincent, dominican republic, st. kitts, haiti, kanada, kuba, st. lucia, aruba, grenada

Pot 4 suriname, curacao, guyana, puerto rico, barbados, belize, dominica, montserrat, bermuda, nicaragua

Pot 5 turks islands, american virgin islands, bahamas, cayman islands, british virgin islands, anguilla, bonaire, french guyana, guadeloupe, martinique, Saint martin

 

[AURELIUS]

True.

The African Cup of Nations always seems like it needs changing IMO. Is there any reason in particular as to why they play it in January/February?

Climate considerations. And it is a very old competition which deserves equal treatment with the other continental championships.

Merging the two competitions is interesting because at present the Copa America offers invites even to teams outside of CONMEBOL. The USA competed in 2007 and were roundly drubbed but would do better now. And some of the CONACAF sides like Costa Rica are no pushovers.

Competitive games to qualify for a combined tournament would be more appealing to television rather than friendlies and may indeed offer chances for the likes of Messi to really fill his boots when you consider some of the real minnows there are in UEFA.

Travel would be an issue and also dispensing with the traditions of both cups particularly the Copa America which has a very long and illustrious history.

 

[AURELIUS]

as of now, the pots would look like this.

Pot 1 argentina, columbia, brazil, uruguay, chile, costa rica, mexico, usa, chile, ecuador

Pot 2 peru, panama, honduras, guatemala, paraguay, venezuela, el salvador, antigua barbuda, trinidad tobago, bolivia

Pot 3 jamaica, st. vincent, dominican republic, st. kitts, haiti, kanada, kuba, st. lucia, aruba, grenada

Pot 4 suriname, curacao, guyana, puerto rico, barbados, belize, dominica, montserrat, bermuda, nicaragua

Pot 5 turks islands, american virgin islands, bahamas, cayman islands, british virgin islands, anguilla, bonaire, french guyana, guadeloupe, martinique, Saint martin

Can you imagine some of the scores in these matches ? I could see Argentina knock in ten or more goals a game against all sides barring Jamaica and Canada in pot three downwards. So would teams like Brazil, Argentina, Colombia even bother to field full strength teams for these matches ? Are the facilities up to the standards as well ?

 

[Rahj]

that's another problem. one might have a pre-quali with pot 3 to 5. but then again there would be less minnows against which messi and neymar could rack up hattricks.

 

[Kerrybai]

This is already pretty much happening as we have the 2016 Copa America with NA teams and it's been played in the USA. I'm fairly confident the following will happen...

The 2016 tournament will be a great success and the money generated from the US participation and hosting will be too hard to ignore. The 2 associations will want to keep the gravy flowing and also realise that they can only compete with the EURO's if they merge... also they will probably go down the route of a pre qualifying round for the shit teams.

Or alternatively they might just constantly invite 4 NA teams to the Copa America, either way with soccer growing in the US and Canada I don't see how the South America federation could just ignore the potential profits.