The continental imbalance

This World Cup will be the first with 48 countries. The number has slowly grown, from an inauspicious 13 in 1930 to 16, 24 then finally 32 in France in 1998. I say finally, and most of us probably thought 32 was peak bloat, but like Mister Creosote they've found room for another 16 wafer thin mints. Whether we can expect a similar outcome remains to be seen.

The 48 will be made up of 16 countries from Europe, 10 from Africa, 6 from South America, 6 from the rest of America (that's North America, Central America and the Caribbean), 9 from Asia and 1 from Oceania. Oceania used to have a play off against a South American team, but FIFA have now given them an automatic place. This means in future New Zealand will always qualify, unless they manage to lose to Vanuatu or one of the other volcanoes.

The continental balance might strike you as not in fact that well balanced. Europe may be the centre of our world, but the centre of the actual physical world is a superheated mass of iron and nickel that doesn't send anyone to the World Cup, and Europe is roughly as far from it as everywhere else. Even if you concentrate on the surface and ignore the wet bits, you wouldn't think its non-European areas were particularly fairly represented. A head count doesn't help, it wouldn't be fair in that sense unless China sent eight teams and the Netherlands got two goes every century.

There is a difficulty here, though, which is that UEFA could argue that Europe is over represented because it's mainly European countries that win. Since the millennium a European country has won four times, as compared to two wins for South America (one each for Brazil and Argentina, unsurprisingly) and none for anyone else. Europe has provided roughly half the countries at each round of every knockout stage during that time, so they might feel that if anything they're under represented.

A counter-argument would be that Europe does well because it has lots of teams there and that skews the stats, so cause and effect are actually the other way round. You could further point out that European countries have an unfair advantage because the financial power of their club leagues means that for instance African or Asian squads are mainly drawn from players playing in Europe, where they are spread across the whole continent, whereas England or Italy pick most of their squads from a few teams so they know each other much better. During Spain's glory days in the early part of the millennium, when they won tournaments in 2008, 2010 and 2012, they always picked the spine of their team from the same two clubs, Barcelona and Real Madrid. It's a winning formula, but you have to have a rich domestic league to use it.

To be fair to FIFA, and if nothing else football's greatest enemies are an excellent test of our sense of fairness, they have used the expansion to improve the balance this time. This is partly because they have had to accommodate three hosts from North America, but the difference is striking nonetheless. In Qatar there were 13 European teams out of 32, or 40%. This time we have 16 out of 48, or 33%. As a percentage drop it wouldn't astonish Keir Starmer, but it's enough to test the theory that adjusting the continental balance might have an impact on the outcome.

Incidentally, it just struck me that without particularly thinking about it I felt the need to spell out the name Keir Starmer. This came from a sense that if I had just said Starmer a significant section of my audience would have been left going 'who?' This is one of his problems. I could have said Thatcher, or Major or Blair, and wouldn't have had this concern. Will we ever have another leader whose surname would stand on its own? Looking at my examples I can only hope we don't.

Yes you can expect a lot of that kind of thing. Like the school bell, the blog theme is a signal for me not for you. Not all my readers are as completely focused on football as I am, and it pleases me to offer them something.

If you're one of the unfocused and you're looking for a way to get a handle on events, you might find it instructive to have a look through this year's squads. Who has the players from Arsenal or Paris St Germain, and who is making do with Motherwell? This is a clue to a country's prospects. No-one from Motherwell will be playing deep into July, so in all likelihood neither will New Zealand.

Compare New Zealand's squad with the squads of France, or Brazil. I bet those are clubs that even you've heard of. If I was to make one prediction, it is that at least half of the eight quarter finalists will be drawn from the eight countries who have won the World Cup before. That's Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and England. You heard it here first. Unless you've been paying any attention at all, in which case you heard it somewhere else first. While I'm at it, I predict that it will be hot, and some penalties will be missed.

So that's continents for you. The football starts tomorrow so I'll probably be talking about that. More World Cup news a long time after it happens.