SOUTH AMERICAN nations will be able to join the Uefa Nations League from 2024, Uefa vice-president Zbigniew Boniek has said, in a move that would undermine Fifa’s planned biennial World Cup.
“This is the last Nations League in this format,” Boniek said in an interview with the Polish sports news portal Meczyki published on Thursday.
“From 2024, CONMEBOL will join the Nations League. I don’t yet know in what format,” he said.
“It’s being worked on,” he said, adding that “this will make the Nations League even more important”.
CONMEBOL is the continental governing body of football in South America, bringing together 10 countries including Argentina and Brazil.
Contacted by AFP, a Uefa spokesperson said that “Uefa is working on a number of projects with CONMEBOL, including a joint Nations League but nothing is finalised and no decisions have yet been made”.
Boniek, a Polish football legend who played for Juventus and Roma in the 1980s, also coached the national team.
Appointed chairman of the Polish football federation in 2012, he left the post this year to join Uefa.
That will be a lot of traveling
@thomas walsh:
Not for most of the squad based in europe
@James Moran: surely though any South American involvement will be on the basis that they can play home games. So a lot travelling will be involved
What a load of boll ocks
Won’t happen this is just another play by UEFA in the UEFA-FIFA power struggle. FIFA want to promote the club world cup, which UEFA feel would damage their crown jewel the champions league. So FIFA threatened a 2 year WC damaging the European championship (nations league), UEFA are fighting back with a mini world cup of sorts, expect more as the power struggle continues. In truth FIFA are just getting greedy.
Did Pele once say the European Championships is effectively the World Cup without Brazil and Argentina ? Unlikely that will ever happen as the European big guns know it decreases their chances of winning it so they are dressing up this sham competition instead , it has never caught fire with fans as a concept so it’s desperate measures
@Thechestnut: Pele also said an African team would win the WC by 2010 and that Emre who played for Newcastle would become the best player in the World haha
@Kieran Fogarty: and they said Diego was off his face most the time! Emre? Surely that’s worthy of a quick psych evaluation?
UEFA slowly turning it into a World Cup/ world tournament after opposing Fifas biennial proposition.