A threat to the World Cup by Efosa Osayimwen April 4, 2003

There is no doubt that football stands out as one of the greatest games and the World Cups as one of the greatest sporting events. Only competitions such as the Olympics and the UEFA Champions League can draw such attention but yet they are not up to the magnitude of the World Cup. The World Cup is the only event that can keep the whole world at its feet whether or not your country is participating. No event can achieve the high level of anticipation as does the World Cup as it has individuals counting the months, days, hours, minutes and even seconds before its commencement, and when it does kick off, you can sense the heat all around you.
This is how it ought to be maintained but little fears creeped in when the Confederation of African Football CAF, took the decision to start using the Nations Cup as a means of getting its five representatives to the World Cup. This new format can pose a detrimental effect to the World Cup if not properly handled. How can this detrimental effect occur?
The World Cup finals draw is an event that normally takes place in November or December of the year before the World Cup while the Nations Cup is usually held in January or February of the World Cup year. Therefore it is certain that the World Cup draw will be held before the Continent of Africa determines its five representatives. There are two ways out of this dilemma, either delay the World Cup draw to a time around late February or early March when the five representatives from Africa would have been known, or go ahead with the draw at its normal timing while placing African teams in advance into groups with their respective positions at the Nations Cup to the held later on. Both options present setbacks to the World Cup, and therein lies the genesis of this threat to the World Cup.
If we are to go by the former i.e. delaying the World Cup draw to a later time around late February or early March, when the Nations Cup must has concluded, it will only serve to reduce the level of anticipation needed for the tournament. Adequate publicity and promotion required for certain matches and the World Cup as a whole cannot be fully attained.. Even participating Nations will have their preparation delayed by this, as most friendly matches will have to be scheduled at a very late hour.
To go by the other choice of placing African teams in advance into groups might even be worse. The World Cup draw is supposed to be a colourful event with the flag of every participating Nation flown high, with their football officials and coaches present, will be made grossly incomplete as the match pairings of 5 out of 8 groups will be remain an unknown. African representatives might have the opportunity of selecting a particular group as they have been placed in advance into groups by their respective positions at a Nations Cup that is yet to be played. A country might easily decide to come 4th or even 2nd in the Nations Cup in order to secure a relatively easy group not having any big names. This is in an actual sense a form of cheating. Still on this issue, African teams can NEVER be seeded in a World Cup draw because they remain unknown. Presently African teams are not being seeded but in the future they will be top seeds at a World Cup. How then will this hurdle be scaled? This move by CAF will certainly be a setback to the World Cup if not properly handled.