IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2023_002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Format and schedule proposals for a FIFA World Cup with 12 four-team groups

Author

Listed:
  • Guajardo, Mario

    (Dept. of Business and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics)

  • Krumer, Alex

    (Faculty of Business Administration and Social Sciences, Molde University College)

Abstract

After the expansion of the FIFA World Cup from 32 to 48 teams starting from the 2026 edition, the initial proposal was to split the 48 national teams into 16 groups of three. Among other drawbacks, this proposal provides potential for collusion. Recently, after widespread criticism, FIFA officials signaled the possibility to re-discuss that proposal, pointing to a tournament with 12 groups of four teams. If this new proposal prevails, relevant questions arise about tournament design and schedule. In this paper, we propose tournament formats for a World Cup with 12 groups of four teams, considering a number of criteria, such as non-collusion, symmetry in rest days, no dead rubbers, and a tournament length of about one month. At the same time, our proposals attempt to adhere to the traditional format, with some nuances either in the group stage or in the knockout stage.

Suggested Citation

  • Guajardo, Mario & Krumer, Alex, 2023. "Format and schedule proposals for a FIFA World Cup with 12 four-team groups," Discussion Papers 2023/2, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2023_002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hdl.handle.net/11250/3057998
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. László Csató, 2019. "UEFA Champions League Entry Has Not Satisfied Strategyproofness in Three Seasons," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(7), pages 975-981, October.
    2. Sebastián Cea & Guillermo Durán & Mario Guajardo & Denis Sauré & Joaquín Siebert & Gonzalo Zamorano, 2020. "An analytics approach to the FIFA ranking procedure and the World Cup final draw," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 286(1), pages 119-146, March.
    3. Vong, Allen I.K., 2017. "Strategic manipulation in tournament games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 562-567.
    4. László Csató, 2020. "The UEFA Champions League seeding is not strategy-proof since the 2015/16 season," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 292(1), pages 161-169, September.
    5. Alex Krumer & Juan D. Moreno-Ternero, 2023. "The Allocation of Additional Slots for the FIFA World Cup," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(7), pages 831-850, October.
    6. Alex Krumer & Reut Megidish & Aner Sela, 2020. "The optimal design of round-robin tournaments with three players," Journal of Scheduling, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 379-396, June.
    7. Dmitry Dagaev & Konstantin Sonin, 2018. "Winning by Losing," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(8), pages 1122-1146, December.
    8. Fernando Alarcón & Guillermo Durán & Mario Guajardo & Jaime Miranda & Hugo Muñoz & Luis Ramírez & Mario Ramírez & Denis Sauré & Matías Siebert & Sebastián Souyris & Andrés Weintraub & Rodrigo Wolf-Yad, 2017. "Operations Research Transforms the Scheduling of Chilean Soccer Leagues and South American World Cup Qualifiers," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 47(1), pages 52-69, February.
    9. Kendall, Graham & Lenten, Liam J.A., 2017. "When sports rules go awry," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 257(2), pages 377-394.
    10. Guyon Julien, 2015. "Rethinking the FIFA World Cup™ final draw," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 169-182, September.
    11. Netanel Nissim & Aner Sela, 2020. "The Third Place Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 64-86, January.
    12. Mark Duggan & Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Winning Isn't Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1594-1605, December.
    13. Durán, Guillermo & Guajardo, Mario & Sauré, Denis, 2017. "Scheduling the South American Qualifiers to the 2018 FIFA World Cup by integer programming," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 262(3), pages 1109-1115.
    14. Alex Krumer & Reut Megidish & Aner Sela, 2017. "First-mover advantage in round-robin tournaments," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 48(3), pages 633-658, March.
    15. Di Mattia, Alessandro & Krumer, Alex, 2023. "Fewer teams, more games, larger attendance? Evidence from the structural change in basketball's EuroLeague," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(1), pages 359-370.
    16. Vincenzo Scoppa, 2015. "Fatigue and Team Performance in Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(5), pages 482-507, June.
    17. Guy Elaad & Alex Krumer & Jeffrey Kantor, 2018. "Corruption and Sensitive Soccer Games: Cross-Country Evidence," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 364-394.
    18. Christian Groh & Benny Moldovanu & Aner Sela & Uwe Sunde, 2012. "Optimal seedings in elimination tournaments," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 49(1), pages 59-80, January.
    19. Van Bulck, David & Goossens, Dries & Schönberger, Jörn & Guajardo, Mario, 2020. "RobinX: A three-field classification and unified data format for round-robin sports timetabling," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 280(2), pages 568-580.
    20. Krumer, Alex & Lechner, Michael, 2017. "First in first win: Evidence on schedule effects in round-robin tournaments in mega-events," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 412-427.
    21. Csató, László, 2022. "Quantifying incentive (in)compatibility: A case study from sports," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(2), pages 717-726.
    22. Goller, Daniel & Krumer, Alex, 2020. "Let's meet as usual: Do games played on non-frequent days differ? Evidence from top European soccer leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(2), pages 740-754.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. L'aszl'o Csat'o & L'aszl'o Marcell Kiss & Zsombor Sz'adoczki, 2023. "The allocation of FIFA World Cup slots based on the ranking of confederations," Papers 2310.19100, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Csató, László, 2022. "Quantifying incentive (in)compatibility: A case study from sports," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 302(2), pages 717-726.
    2. László Csató, 2020. "Optimal Tournament Design: Lessons From the Men’s Handball Champions League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(8), pages 848-868, December.
    3. Krumer, Alex & Megidish, Reut & Sela, Aner, 2023. "Strategic manipulations in round-robin tournaments," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 50-57.
    4. Arlegi, Ritxar & Dimitrov, Dinko, 2020. "Fair elimination-type competitions," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 287(2), pages 528-535.
    5. László Csató, 2020. "The UEFA Champions League seeding is not strategy-proof since the 2015/16 season," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 292(1), pages 161-169, September.
    6. Csató, László, 2023. "How to avoid uncompetitive games? The importance of tie-breaking rules," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(3), pages 1260-1269.
    7. László Csató, 2022. "How to design a multi-stage tournament when some results are carried over?," OR Spectrum: Quantitative Approaches in Management, Springer;Gesellschaft für Operations Research e.V., vol. 44(3), pages 683-707, September.
    8. Ritxar Arlegi & Dinko Dimitrov, 2023. "League competitions and fairness," Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, Springer, vol. 45(4), pages 1-18, May.
    9. Chater, Mario & Arrondel, Luc & Gayant, Jean-Pascal & Laslier, Jean-François, 2021. "Fixing match-fixing: Optimal schedules to promote competitiveness," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 294(2), pages 673-683.
    10. Laica, Christoph & Lauber, Arne & Sahm, Marco, 2021. "Sequential round-robin tournaments with multiple prizes," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 421-448.
    11. L'aszl'o Csat'o & L'aszl'o Marcell Kiss & Zsombor Sz'adoczki, 2023. "The allocation of FIFA World Cup slots based on the ranking of confederations," Papers 2310.19100, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    12. Guillermo Durán, 2021. "Sports scheduling and other topics in sports analytics: a survey with special reference to Latin America," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 29(1), pages 125-155, April.
    13. Chen Cohen & Ishay Rabi & Aner Sela, 2023. "Optimal seedings in interdependent contests," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 328(2), pages 1263-1285, September.
    14. Csató, László & Petróczy, Dóra Gréta, 2022. "Hogyan számszerűsíthető az ösztönzéskompatibilitás? Esettanulmány a sport világából [Quantifying incentive compatibility: a case study from the world of sports]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 841-852.
    15. László Csató, 2021. "A comparison of penalty shootout designs in soccer," 4OR, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 183-198, June.
    16. Muhammad Asif & Ali Ahmadian & Muhammad Azeem & Bruno Antonio Pansera, 2021. "A short comparative study on modified Duckworth-Lewis methods," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(11), pages 1-12, November.
    17. Goller, Daniel & Krumer, Alex, 2020. "Let's meet as usual: Do games played on non-frequent days differ? Evidence from top European soccer leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(2), pages 740-754.
    18. Csató László, 2022. "The effects of draw restrictions on knockout tournaments," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 18(4), pages 227-239, December.
    19. Christoph Laica & Arne Lauber & Marco Sahm, 2017. "Sequential Round-Robin Tournaments with Multiple Prizes," CESifo Working Paper Series 6685, CESifo.
    20. Bergantiños, Gustavo & Moreno-Ternero, Juan D., 2022. "Monotonicity in sharing the revenues from broadcasting sports leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 297(1), pages 338-346.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    FIFA World Cup; Round-robin; scheduling; soccer;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C60 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - General
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2023_002. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stein Fossen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.