now to a story that you might have missed yesterday because it was quite busy news day. UEFA have announced they’re moving away from the current European qualifier system for the 2030 World Cup and will revamp to something similar to the Swiss model that we see in UEFA club competitions. Michael’s here to explain it all to us.
Um, Michael, full disclosure, 5 a.m. this morning, this bended our minds, but you’ve had time to really get your head around it. I’ve had time, but it’s very important as well. And it’s really really interesting about the changes because we know for years we’ve talked about you know some of the some of the bigger nations against the so-called smaller nations the competitive nature of it.
So have a listen everyone see if you prefer this ruling and then if you get a bit confused just rewind us just have just you might need to. Yeah you might need to. So in in Istanbul yesterday UEFA announced a new Champions League style format. to national team qualification in Europe for the 2030 World Cup.
It means we’ll no longer see England and any other major countries play minor nations such as San Marino, Gibralta, and Andor. Now, this was the result back in 2021 when Harry Kane scored four goals to book England’s place at the World Cup in Qatar. It’s been a debate for a long time whether these nations should play against top nations just due to the sheer gap in quality.
But those countries like San Marino would argue they get to fulfill a lifelong dream by playing in some of the best stadiums in the world. Now UEFA president Alexander Sephrine said the new formats will improve competitive balance and reduce the number of dead matches. So what is the new format and how is it going to work?
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So the top 36 countries will be drawn into three groups of 12 teams in a league one. Six matches in total, two from each pot, similar to the current Swiss model in UEFA club competitions, a mix of home and away against six different opponents, moving away from the current home and away format. Now, the best ranked teams of each group of League One will qualify for the World Cup with the remaining places allocated via playoffs.
Now UEFA have said full details of how qualification will be achieved are still to be fine-tuned. Now UEFA’s executive committee is set to fully sign off the new format for Euro and World Cup qualification at a meeting in September. So League One will be composed of 36 teams from the Nations League which is also getting a revamp.
But because we don’t know what that would look like, we’ve mocked up a potential group for England based on the current FIFA rankings of the top 36 European nations. England would be in pot one, which means they could be in a group alongside France, Spain, Portugal. They’d have to play and all these other nations.hey would have to play two of those three nations.
One of them at home, the other away. Now, the format is a is followed in pot two and pot three. So they could play Norway at Wembley, tasty, and Poland away. Tasty. Plus the Republic of Ireland in Dublin, Woo, and Romania at home. So just to be clear, this is all set to be confirmed by UEFA in September.
But a major change incoming for how England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Republic qualify for international tournaments. It’s basically you’re in a group of 12 and within that you’re split into three pots based on rankings and you play two two and two.
Before we can even start to think about 2030 though, we’ve got this summer’s World Cup to get through. A reminder, the England squad announcement is tomorrow and the best place for all the reaction is right here on Sky Sports News. We will be live from Wembley for that announcement at 10:00
