2025 World Cup

[langpark]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

32 teams is too many imho, 24 was right. Same with the Euros, 16 was fine, no need for 24.

You might be right, but the great thing about the numbers 8, 16, 32, is that it provides the simplest and fairest format.  With groups of four, with top two from each progressing to the KO stages.  That is why I am so glad we have made it to the magic number of 16, because I can see us consolidating there now for a long time.

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, langpark said:

You might be right, but the great thing about the numbers 8, 16, 32, is that it provides the simplest and fairest format.  With groups of four, with top two from each progressing to the KO stages.  That is why I am so glad we have made it to the magic number of 16, because I can see us consolidating there now for a long time.

Yeah definitely agree on that, 24 is unwieldy in terms of some 3rd placed teams getting through, but was about the right number of teams for a quality World Cup (format aside). 16 is great for RL, and there’s 8 what you might consider first class teams (in cricket terms) so it works nicely. I really am so excited about this year’s WC, if it happens