This is the back-to-school debate. After the official declarations of Arsène Wenger, director of football for FIFA, of a project of world cup every two years, it is the shambles which reigns. Between the supporters of such a reform and the romantic opponents, attached to the rarity of the event. But concretely, what does a world cup mean every 2 years?
The former Arsenal coach, Arsene Wenger, wants to upset and revolutionize everything. He simply wants to modify the international calendar in depth and impose a world championship every two years.
His idea is simple to understand, but quite problematic to accept. For many years, we have been criticizing the pace of matches, friendly or qualifying matches for selections, deemed useless and boring. We, the fans, are more and more interested in only club matches and rarely in selection matches. Let’s face it, France – Armenia or England – Andorra are, at best, amusing, at worst, soporific.
The solution is then all found, let’s organize only important matches, only qualifying matches and competitive matches, and delete friendly matches from the calendars. Yes, but there you have it, problem, by doing this, we actually reduce the number of potential matches in selection and we take the risk of altering the power of FIFA vis-à-vis the clubs, both in the media and economically. If fewer international matches, it is the announced death of the football of nations.
The solution, Arsène Wenger has found it: to eliminate useless and uninteresting matches, while maintaining the same pace, but simplified over fewer windows, all you have to do is organize a World Cup every 2 years. A year would thus be devoted to qualifying for this competition, then we would continue on this one, and the following year would be devoted to qualifying for the continental competition, the Euro for the European selections or the Copa America for the selections. South Americans.
If one would like to defend this idea, it seems that it is a beautiful project. It reinforces the weight of international meetings – no more friendly matches, we would only have important posters – and it facilitates the organization of the calendar with the qualifications carried out over an entire season. Then, the World Cup every 2 years would ensure a better rotation for the organizing countries and would guarantee a presence in Africa or Asia, often left out of modern football. Finally, the multiplication of worlds would offer more international meetings, more confrontations between teams from different continents and therefore a gain of experience for the outsiders. Those who have never had the opportunity to play against France or Brazil so far could see their chances of facing them increase,
Except that my frankness obliges me to tell you that I am particularly opposed to this project. First of all, let’s not be naive, this idea is above all driven by economic arguments. The world is the goose that lays the golden eggs of FIFA, each edition brings in between 2 and 4 billion dollars per instance, increasing its pace would naturally pull up its revenue. Then, it is wrong to believe that to give interest to the public, it would be enough to give him only big matches.
It is precisely boredom and pain that create desire and passion. Chain a fall 100 times before succeeding in a jump and you will take extreme pleasure, chain 100 jumps and you will most certainly be bored. This is the law of diminishing returns, of diminishing marginal utility described by utilitarian economists. Something is good precisely because it is rare, inaccessible, desired, wanted, hoped for, dreamed of. The World Cup, like the Olympic Games, we all wait for it and we watch it with interest and admiration because it is rare, because it only happens every 4 years. If you trivialize the exceptional, you will make the exceptional banal, insignificant, normal.
Today, if we do not like the friendly matches of the France team, it is perhaps because we have the point of comparison with the unforgettable matches of the World Cups. We make the comparison, we remember these great moments, these France – Croatia or France – Argentina, this goal from Pavard or this race from Mbappé. But by removing the boring moments and only putting on supposedly important encounters, the tension and excitement disappear altogether. There will be no more comparison, no more reference, no more goal to achieve.
A simple example to illustrate this diminishing marginal utility, everyone would like to leave school, university, classes early and go home, out of that long and boring National Accounting or Sports History course. Once the hour is over, once the bell has rung, what a pleasure to be able to close your computer and put your things away, the day is finally over. Okay, so based on this principle, if school is boring to you, you might as well stop right away, go back to confinement and back home. Is that really what you want? Strangely, we realize that we appreciate something only once we no longer have it in our hands, that we really benefit from something only once we realize its importance and of his interest.
It’s exactly the same with the World Cup every two years. Increase its appearance, destroy the dream and the inaccessible and its interest disappears completely. There will no longer be any thrill or suspense, the exceptional will become banal like any friendly match.
So, are you more for or against?
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