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Ireland Versus Iran for 2002

  • 12-10-2009 4:48pm
    #1
    Rondolfus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 374 ✭✭


    Why did Ireland play against an Asian team in the playoff for 2002? Why was this format changed? I heard it was because Fifa wanted the strongest teams in Europe to get through and they assumed Holland would have finished second....

    Does anyone know what the old format was and the real reason it was changed?


Comments

  • #2
    Dearg81
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,174 ✭✭✭Dearg81


    I think that there were 7 european groups, so they needed another team to make it even. It changed cos there are more teams in UEFA now than there was in 2002.


  • #3
    Rekop dog
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,584 ✭✭✭Rekop dog


    Rondolfus wrote: »
    Why did Ireland play against an Asian team in the playoff for 2002? Why was this format changed? I heard it was because Fifa wanted the strongest teams in Europe to get through and they assumed Holland would have finished second....

    Does anyone know what the old format was and the real reason it was changed?

    I think they cut the number of European nations playing in the world cup!


  • #4
    Dearg81
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,174 ✭✭✭Dearg81


    I just looked it up and there was 9 european groups


  • #5
    ArmaniJeanss
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,615 ✭✭✭✭ArmaniJeanss


    Asia was due an allocation of 4 places for that World Cup, one of which would be given to the host country.
    But we ended up with joint hosts in Japan and SouthKorea which obviously displeased the other Asian teams as they would only have 2 remaining places to aim for, so after some political bartering Uefa agreed to give a .5 place to Asia, resulting in a play off.

    There was a random draw done about three quarters of the way through the UEFA campaign to decide the playoff places, e.g., Runner Up of Group 1 plays Runner Up of Group 4 etc, with the remaining Runner Up playing the Asian team. (There was the usual tinhat suspicions that this draw was less than random as Holland were the highest profile Uefa team who looked like being in the playoffs, with their fans who traditionally travel in large numbers liberally throwing their money about. If there was a fix then Roy Keane and Jason McAteer put a spanner in the works :)).

    Edit.
    Around this time FIFA announced that they would prefer not to have joint host countries in the future in order to be more fair and equitable with qualification places.
    Though interestingly Asia still has 4.5 places, and Uefa has gone down from 14.5 then to 13 now, so FIFAs definition of fair and equitable may not be everyones.


  • #6
    Rondolfus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 374 ✭✭Rondolfus


    ArmaniJeanss wrote: »
    Asia was due an allocation of 4 places for that World Cup, one of which would be given to the host country.
    But we ended up with joint hosts in Japan and SouthKorea which obviously displeased the other Asian teams as they would only have 2 remaining places to aim for, so after some political bartering Uefa agreed to give a .5 place to Asia, resulting in a play off.

    There was a random draw done about three quarters of the way through the UEFA campaign to decide the playoff places, e.g., Runner Up of Group 1 plays Runner Up of Group 4 etc, with the remaining Runner Up playing the Asian team. (There was the usual tinhat suspicions that this draw was less than random as Holland were the highest profile Uefa team who looked like being in the playoffs, with their fans who traditionally travel in large numbers liberally throwing their money about. If there was a fix then Roy Keane and Jason McAteer put a spanner in the works :)).


    Lets hope our players can put another spanner in the works after this "seeded playoff" fiasco.


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