L’Equipe reported that the French team’s World Cup qualifiers were lackluster and UEFA is considering reforming the World Cup qualifiers.
The currently ongoing 2026 World Cup qualifiers, like most previous qualifiers, are boring for French team supporters. The three opponents (Ukraine, Iceland and Azerbaijan) were not exciting, some of the venues were not very suitable for this level of competition, and the games often lacked suspense or excitement. So far, there's been little to get excited about France's performance. Other "powerful" teams in Europe are facing similar situations, which has attracted the attention of UEFA.
UEFA is worried that these World Cup and European Cup qualifiers will gradually be marginalized, between the major leagues and the Champions League, so it is ready to completely change this status quo. On October 9, at the "Football Summit" held in Lisbon, UEFA President Alexander Ceferin admitted that the existing model is outdated: "The qualifiers may be different and will not increase the number of games, but will adopt a more interesting format. We are currently considering this issue."
Specifically, a working group led by Philippe Diallo, chairman of the National Team Competition Committee, is responsible for making recommendations. There are currently two main options: one is to use the national league as a qualifying system for large-scale events, just like the women's football competition; the other is to imitate the new Champions League and adopt a single round-robin system, without double rounds of home and away games, and determine the teams that directly advance and participate in the play-offs through the overall ranking.
In actual operation, a single group containing 54 countries can be established (UEFA has 55 member countries, but Russia is suspended), or two groups containing 27 teams each to ensure a balanced distribution between large countries, medium countries and small countries. Like the Champions League, this format can provide a matchup between big countries, attracting the interest of fans, TV broadcasters and sponsors, while not harming the interests of small countries, because they will face more opponents of the same level.
As for when this reform will be implemented, since the 2024-2028 cycle has already been sold to broadcasters according to the existing format, it will be difficult to implement before the end of the cycle. For the Champions League, UEFA will wait until 2024, when the three-year contract with TV broadcasters ends, before launching a new format. UEFA is expected to take the same approach, which could also help boost broadcast fees in the future.
In any case, the discussion has not yet been finalized. When an option is prioritized, the working group will submit a proposal to the National Team Competition Committee, which may make some changes, but the final decision rests with the UEFA Executive Committee. There is no doubt they want to overhaul what is clearly an outdated qualifying system.