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Editor's comment At their congress before the Nations Cup the Confederation of African Football are going to discuss the idea of doubling up the finals of the Nations Cup as the continent's qualification series for the World Cup. My colleague Osasu Obayiuwana is convinced that this is a good idea, especially as it solves the problems of club versus country by about 50 percent. Apparently FIFA is in favour as it also lets them off the hook despite their attempt to produce a unified calendar. I can tell them all now that it won't work and should not even be on the agenda. The draw for the World Cup has a traditional slot at the start of December and the African qualifiers would have to be known by then. Someone said to me that this would not be necessary as the qualifiers could be labelled Africa 1, Africa 2, etc in the pot. I'm not laughing. Let us consider the alternatives. The 2004 tournament could be used, but this is really too far ahead of 2006. The World Cup draw could be moved to a later date, but I would think that the only way around it would be to have a 2005 Nations Cup instead of 2004. Really though the main obstacle is that there are five African slots and this does not lend itself easily to having the Cup of Nations as a qualifying tournament. Four places would go to the semi-finalists, but whither that fifth slot? I would put it to you that we cannot rely on our soccer administrators to come up with a formula that would not be beyond the closest of scrutiny. The advantage laid out by for this nonsense is that this would give the Nations Cup even more spice and certainly appear to give the smaller nations a more even chance of World Cup qualification. The reality is that it will not. The big guns will be too much whether the smaller ones have one or two competitions to go for and at the moment the likes of Burkina Faso tend to put all their eggs in one basket anyway. Besides with only five slots we need the big guns until quarter-final slots are habitual for at least two of our qualifiers. Need I remind you that only once has an African team reached the World Cup last eight. That said I already feel resigned to the problems that will come as common sense fails to prevail.
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