World Cup 2026: Is Italy coach Gennaro Gattuso right that qualifying is unfair to Europe?

With the exception of Cape Verde, which will participate for the first time next year, the African qualifiers are all fixed on the world stage: Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia.

There are six countries among the top 50 countries in the world, while Ghana ranks 73rd, the lowest ranked among the nine countries. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that none of these countries deserve to be there at the expense of a European country.

But what do the numbers tell us? Let’s use relative strength again by looking at the top 50 teams and weighting them at the league level.

UEFA has seen its share of World Cup places fall from 54% in the 1990s to 33.33% today – yet almost half of its teams (46.30%) are in the top 50.

So, is it fair that Europe will only get three more places when FIFA 16 added another venue for the 2026 event?

Africa now has nine places with 53 entrants, i.e. 21.43% of automatic places, but only seven (14%) are among the world’s top 50 entrants. This suggests that they may be overrepresented by a small amount, but not by much.

CONCACAF is about to reach a point of relative strength. Six countries now qualify for the World Cup finals (14.29%), with five of their 32 teams (15.63%) in the top 50.

The real exception is Asia, which includes only four of the 46 participating countries (8.70%) in the top 50, yet it receives eight automatic places (19.05%).

So Gattuso may have a point in there somewhere, but it’s unlikely he’ll get any sympathy.