CONCACAF chief eyes World Cup qualifying overhaul

CONCACAF chief Victor Montagliani said disruption caused by coronavirus pandemic would likely force changes to structure of region's qualifying competition for 2022 World Cup. In an interview with Canada's Onesoccer.com website, Montagliani said he expected CONCACAF's traditional "Hexagonal" final round of qualifying would have to be scrapped under reforms. For 2018 World Cup, six teams played in a home-and-away round-robin group with top three teams from rth America, Central America and Caribbean qualifying directly for finals in Russia and fourth place team entering a playoff.

CONCACAF chief eyes World Cup qualifying overhaul

However Montagliani said global sporting shutdown caused by COVID-19 pandemic would likely mean loss of important FIFA international windows ahead of 2022 World Cup, meaning reforms to qualifying structure were inevitable.

"I think on balance of probabilities in terms of what has happened so far, and what likely will continue to happen, current World Cup format will have to be changed," Montagliani said.

"Which means that ultimately 'Hex' will have to be changed into some or form." 

Montagliani did t provide any details of what a reformed qualifying competition might look like however. "Obviously it will be bigger, but what that number is I don't kw until we have a calendar," he said. "Until we kw from FIFA how many windows we have it's going to be very hard for me to say it's going to be this, that or or. "Because even on some of modelling that my competitions guys are working on in ir basements right w, depending on what this calendar looks like, whatever you've thought of you might have to redo that." 

Montagliani said however he expected FIFA rankings would be used to help formulate preliminary rounds of qualifying.

"You're going to have to use FIFA rankings to start somewhere because that's reality of our confederation and in terms of having 35 teams," he said.

"You're going to have to do some kind of elimination process and n get into some kind of group st process."

Im credits: AP