The European football governing body, UEFA is working on adding Brazil, Argentina, and other South American countries into the UEFA Nations League.
The football body has started discussing with the South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) over a joint Nations League format which might lead to the expansion of the league from 55 European member nations to 65 countries.
According to a UEFA spokesperson, UEFA and CONMEBOL have already started to work on the modalities that would make the joint nations league a possibility but no final decision has been made yet.
However, in an interview with a Polish publication, Meczyki, UEFA vice-president Zbigniew Boniek revealed that the South American teams would be added to the expanded version of the nations league from 2024.
Based on the proposed structure, six out of the ten member nations of CONMEBOL will automatically join League A while the remaining four teams would join the lower League B.
The entry of the South American countries into the UEFA Nations League will expand the teams in League A from 16 to 22 while the teams in League B will be expanded from 16 to 20.
Also, the South American countries would not have the privilege of hosting European teams as all the matches involving the South American teams would be played in Europe to prevent excessive movement.
Both UEFA and the CONMEBOL have already signed a memorandum of understanding until June 2028 which gives room for such an arrangement between the two football bodies.
“From 2024 CONMEBOL will join the Nations League. We do not know yet in what formula, in what form,” UEFA vice-president Zbigniew Boniek said.
“We signed a memorandum about cooperation between CONMEBOL and UEFA and from 2024 these teams will play in the Nations League.”
Besides UEFA Nations League, UEFA and CONMEBOL have partnered to fight against Biannual FIFA World Cup
Aside from trying to form a joint Nations League, UEFA and CONMEBOL are solidly against FIFA’s plan to introduce Biannual World Cup.
The two confederations believe that the current format of the World Cup which holds once in four years is better and should not be altered.
The argument is that if the World Cup is changed from once in four years to once in two years, it would increase the number of games players would have to play and might also affect the local leagues and continental competitions.
Ahead of FIFA’s global summit which would hold on Monday to discuss the proposed biannual World Cup, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin said the meeting would not rubber-stamp FIFA’s plan.
“As much as we know FIFA is still pursuing the project, some signals are coming from different sides that they might not pursue it until the end,” he said.
“We don’t have a particular strategy. For Monday, it will be 211 federations, which means 500 people at the video conference. I don’t expect something very deep.”
