 Let me ask you a question, why is the most-watched sporting event only every 4 years? When I say most watched it is no exaggeration. According to FIFA, more than half the world check in every 4 years. It seems silly with the event having so much popularity and fame, but there may be more reasons then you think. The event I am talking about is none other than Soccer’s (Or Football’s) World Cup. The World Cup is an event where teams from all over the world compete for the title of World Cup Champion. The most recent men's world cup was hosted in Russia and the women in France.
One of the main reasons is the vast amount of qualifying matches the World Cup requires. In 2018 only 32 spots were up for grabs, really only 31 because the hosting country gets an automatic pass. The number of games required to dim down 204 nations into 31 spots is a lot of games. Another reason is that if the players are playing a full season and constantly traveling for their games there are little breaks, which is why the summer is crucial for resting and recovery. Another reason is when the world cup started in 1930 it would have been very hard to move full teams and their fans across the world. This point is evident because in the original world cup only 13 teams competed. Two from North America, seven from South America, and four from Europe, so FIFA most likely decided it would be smarted to do it every 4 years instead of every year. Another reason could be that it's the perfect amount of time to allow fans to get hyped up and excited about the next world cup. This might be one of the reasons it is so popular, maybe if it was every year it would eventually get repetitive and therefore uninteresting which would no longer bring fans in. With it being every 4 years it also allows players to burst into the scene and possibly into fame. A good example of this would be Paul Pogba who played on France in the 2018 Russian world cup which thrusted him into international fame. Another reason is the country's infrastructure. A country must be able to fit 3.03 million-plus people. This is why a country's infrastructure matters so much, just to show how important this is Russia spent over 12 billion dollars in infrastructure. All of the reasons are why the world cup is every 4 years. But is 4 years too long to wait between world cups? A lot of people think this and therefore FIFA is making a new plan. The FIFA president Gianni Infantino has proposed a new plan for a mini-World Cup every 2 years. The tournament would have 8 teams competent and would be named the “Final 8” It would also be the leading teams from an also newly proposed National League competition. The tournament will take place every odd year starting 2021, and take place around the October-November time period. The competition has not been set in stone yet. But according to Infantino, there is a group of reliable investors willing to put 25 million dollars into the tournament having the revenue distributed equally. The FIFA world cup is most likely the most prestigious and famous sporting event around the world. And I'm sure that most people would like to see more of the beautiful game played. Story by Aidan McCloud Comments are closed.
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