Blatter wants World Cup play-offs scrapped

Following his comments a fortnight ago to overhaul the qualification process to favour Africa and Asia national sides, FIFA president Sepp Blatter has now proposed to scrap World Cup play-offs all together. According to Blatter’s column in The FIFA Weekly inaugural issue last month, having fewer, but supposedly superior, European and south American nations qualifying for the 32-team group stages would allow more allegedly underrepresented African and Asian teams to play in the World Cup. Twenty teams, plus host country Brazil, have qualified for the 2014 World Cup so far, whilst the remaining 11 places will be awarded this month through two-legged play-offs. Blatter said: “It will be drama because you have to eliminate teams now in two matches. I think this is good for television, this is good for the spectacle of football, but I think we should try to find a solution where at the end of the qualification, you are in or out, and not this play-off. “This play-off…it gives more intensive action, but for those teams [who are knocked out] it is a hard way to go