Fifa was bashed for 2-year World Cup idea but could it solve netball’s existential crisis?
Hong Kong set to end 24-year wait to compete in global tournament but some in sport fear overexposure will water down flagship product
When he began banging the drum for the football World Cup to be staged every two years, Arsene Wenger was taken aback by the “emotional” response to his proposal.
The chief of global football development for Fifa, Wenger was rounded on by fans’ groups, coaches and European governing body Uefa, whose president, Aleksander Ceferin, related “grave concerns” over a plan that risked “diluting” the competition.
Noises over holding a biennial finals have quietened amid a shift to vaster, overblown World Cups, with a very real possibility that 64 teams could play in the 2030 edition.
Still, the monolithic football beast time and again proves that it can withstand the worst excesses of its more grasping administrators. Other less popular sports are condemned to existing in existential crises.
In its quest to futureproof a sport that inhabits an “increasingly complex landscape”, netball borrowed from Wenger’s playbook and has chosen to stage a World Cup every two years instead of every four from 2027.
On the face of it, World Netball’s decision has its merits. The Commonwealth Games, which every four years provides the platform for one of netball’s marquee tournaments, is seemingly withering on the vine, while the sport is engaged in an ongoing battle for Olympic Games inclusion.