How do they sort out who goes to Tokyo?

[Hot Pepsi]

Why can’t there be a separate women’s Olympic qualification tournament?

[Janik]

And UEFA is significantly underrepresented, of course. That is another thing that is going to devalue the Olympics long term. If the strength is in Europe, which it is likely to be long term with the combination of wealth, generally lower gender inequality, and pre-existing interest levels in the sport, then either the Olympic places have to been rejigged to let more European sides in or the winners will always have an asterisk by their names.

I believe it is being increased to 16 for Paris 2024. Hopefully with most of the extra places going to Europe.

[Janik]

Why can’t there be a separate women’s Olympic qualification tournament?

Lack of time, essentially. Europe has 50-plus federations and many even strength teams. Getting that down to just three in a fair manner is going to need several stages of competition. There just isn't the time for that inside 12 months with the limited number of rounds for international dates.

What would work better far better is if FIFA agreed to swap the World Cup and Continental championships over, i.e. hold the next World Cup in 2023 but then the one after in 2025. Put the next Continental championships on in 2027, and have them act as qualifiers for the 2028 Olympic games.

[ursus arctos]

At least we can count on les Bleues being there

[Nesta]

Especially harsh on France because they were eliminated by a team that wasn't European. It's luck of the draw that's determined the qualifiers.

Oh-oh-oh,
Life can be cruel
Life in Tokyo

[Duncan Gardner]

Morning all and grudging congrats to England on their qualification

Phil Neville is a gobshite- no wonder his daughter wants to play netball like Auntie Tracy. But it would be absurd for England's coach not to run the team.Kenny Shiels in a charge with 2 or 3 Scots and Welsh taking places from English players would be tokenism for an exhibition team

S, W and NI fans were accused of selfishness for opposing this in 2016. Now that the WC/ EC profile is higher that should no longer be an issue. You go to Tokyo and we'll conc on developing the game/ qualifying trios to the Belgian equiv of Sellafield

[Ray de Galles]

In related news ;

GB's men and women set for Olympic Sevens after England win qualifying events

[ursus arctos]

Best at place I could find for this

[URL="https://twitter.com/fifawwc/status/1156614646012530688?s=21"]https://twitter.com/fifawwc/status/1156614646012530688[/URL]

[Satchmo Distel]

Good move - removes the best 3rd place shenanigans

Bad move - the necessary depth does not exist, especially if the allocations follow the men's ratios.

They might also struggle with attendances and TV: three or four games a day, many unbalanced.

[Hot Pepsi]

I was just reading about the 2020 Olympic Baseball tournament. The US might not be there.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I was just reading about the 2020 Olympic Baseball tournament. The US might not be there.

Isn't that like expressing surprise that England's men might not be among the best three soccer teams in Europe despite hosting the Premier League?

[Hot Pepsi]

Not really.

For one, the US has a decent claim to being the best team in the Americas - indeed, the best team in the world - right now, having won the last WBC. England doesn't really have that in football.

But, my problem with it isn't so much about the US, but the overall composition of the field. I should have said that.

To compare it to football, it would be more like if there were a World Cup of football and there were only 12 teams in it and only three or four teams from Europe and only two to four teams from South America and qualification was based on some short tournaments that were not televised featuring cobbled-together teams.

According to wiki. "Six teams will qualify for the Olympic baseball tournament. Japan, as the host nation, automatically qualified. Two teams will qualify through the 2019 Premier12 tournament--the best team from the Americas and the best team from Asia or Oceania. Another American team will qualify through an Americas continental tournament. One spot is reserved for a European or African team through a combined continental tournament. The final spot will be awarded in a world final qualification tournament.^"

I suppose it's like having a cricket world cup, capping it at six teams, and then insisting that South America and East Asia are represented.

One way or the other, a huge portion of the world's baseball fans will not be represented in the event.

Europe/middle east/Africa are going to get at least one team. So Italy or Britain or somebody like that will be in the tournament while the US and/or Dominican Republic and/or Cuba and/or Puerto Rico and/or Venezuela and/or Mexico and/or Canada are at home. Likewise, Asia/Oceana will only have two or three teams, so Japan qualifies automatically, but Korea and Taiwan have to qualify.

It would be nice to get China and Australia in there too, but there probably will not be room. Not much hope for more South American teams either. Baseball has a chance to grow in these places and being in the Olympics would help.

At least its better than the one where Greece qualified automatically while the US, among others, were out and Greece got stuck with a stadium it won't use. That is, of course, why baseball and softball hasn't been in the last few Olympics and may not be after this one.


They should do it the way hockey (or rugby or cricket) does it. Acknowledge who the top teams are based on the totality of evidence over a longer period and then let in some up-and-comers qualify. Don't worry about how many continents are represented.

That's also how the World Baseball Classic works.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I agree with pretty much all of that. I think (might need to check) that there is a proviso in the IOC rules for team sports that each continent has to have one entrant per event, but yeah, after that it's up to the sport's governing body to determine qualification places and process.

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, the Olympics tries to do that, but it’s kind of a farce. It’s not as Eurocentric as it once was, but there are still a lot of sports - especially in the Winter Olympics - that only a few countries are any good at or care about.

And even in the summer games, the IOC seems more interested in the number of countries involved than the number of people who actually care.