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In a meeting of the FIFA executive in Korea today,
a surprise decision was made to stop giving the World
Cup winning country a free pass into the finals of the
next competition. Whoever wins in Japan + South Korea next year
will have to compete to qualify for the next finals in
Germany in 2006, the same as everyone else.
Apparently FIFA delegates had not even been aware that the
issue would be on the agenda. But Sepp Blatter had little
trouble getting it through.
The automatic place for the cup holders was a feature unique to
the World Cup. For example, the reigning champions already have to qualify for European
and South American competitions. And it'll stop the reigning champions from having the option of bleating about not getting
enough competitive match practice. The host country will
of course still get automatic qualification, so Germany's excuse for 2006 is assured.
What's not being said is the extent to which this is a response to the controversy over the
Australia-France friendly. The fact that France were having to
play lots of friendlies, because they didn't have any proper
games to play, could be seen as a prime source of that "clubs-vs-countries" conflict.
Another decision taken at the meeting, which also relates to the
France-Oz thing, was to look at the possibility of reducing the
number of competitive international matches by replacing the Confederations Cup with
the World Club Championship. France and Australia both played in this
year's Confederations Cup.
At the same meeting, the executive also decided that referees
can start wearing advertising in club matches (but not in
internationals). Dolland and Aitchison take note.
See FIFA website report for details and more (not very interesting
FIFA decisions).
They also met on Wednesday to finalise the procedure for tomorrow morning's World Cup draw.
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