The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) are on the verge of being included in UEFA Nations League for the 2024 edition.
The UEFA vice-president, Zbigniew Boniek, confirmed this on Friday evening and the move has been rumoured to be used to counter the plan of playing the World Cup every two years by FIFA.
It’s believed that UEFA and CONMEBOL both have a signed Memorandum of Understand to that effect and the two parties are focused on kick-starting the operation with the opening of a shared office in London.
The former head of Polish Football Association; Zbigniew Boniek said in an interview that the format of the 2024 edition of the UEFA Nations League will change because a meeting has been held with CONMEBOL about the teams from the confederation joining the tournament, but the exact format that it will be played is still being worked on. He also said there won’t be so much mix up because of the national teams’ restrictions.
It’s believed that ten teams from South America will join the European teams and will be grouped into League A which will contain top six nations and the rest will be seeded into League B. With this arrangement, the world of football will get to see top countries like the previous UEFA Nations League winner, Portugal, France go up against European counterparts and top teams from South America like Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and the likes.
The UEFA-CONMEBOL relationship will kick off with the game between Italy, the winner of UEFA European Championship and Argentina, the Copa America winner, the match is scheduled to be hosted in a London stadium by June 1, 2022.
FIFA has not yet planned the 2024 calendar for international matches so there’s no final decision on how the governing body will make plans for world cup, qualifiers, Euros and other continental tournaments.
