We have become accustomed to the World Cup happening every fourth summer. This every four-year rotation has been in place since the first tournament in 1930, and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is the first time in the 92-year history of the event that the cycle has changed. Why, though, is the World Cup held every four years? Why is it not every two years as has been recently suggested? There are several reasons, and we will get into them below.
Why is the World Cup held every 4 years? The primary reason that the World Cup is held every four years is because of how long the qualification process takes. There are over 200 member nations within FIFA, and whittling those countries down to the final 31 (minus the host) is time-consuming. Any attempt to play the greatest sporting event any more frequently than every four years would be almost impossible with the amount of football that elite professionals already play.
Length of qualification is one reason the World Cup is held quadrennially, but it is not the only one. Here is a look in more detail at each of those reasons.
Length of Qualification
As mentioned above, the length of qualification is the main reason the World Cup is held every four years in the modern age. International breaks are scarce, and the money in international football is much less than in the club game. The “club vs. country” debate pops up often, with the clubs wanting their players (who they pay vast sums of money) not to be overused while on national duty.
The football calendar is massive. Premier League players have 38 league games each season. Adding in runs in the FA Cup, the EFL Cup, and one of the three European competitions and players are up at 50 or so games. For example, Liverpool played in every fixture they were eligible for in the 2021-22 season as they made three cup finals. This meant that they had 63 club games that season. Adding in time for another World Cup isn’t realistic as the qualification process takes much longer than for the European Championships or other regional competitions.
Distance Traveled
When Jules Rimet came up with his concept for a World Cup in the late 1920s, the number of games on the football calendar wasn’t an issue. This was a time before European competition, with the most significant barrier for players wanting to play in games being if they could get time off from their actual job.
The first World Cup featured just 13 teams and had zero from Asia, Africa, and Oceania. The tournament was held in Uruguay, and nine participating teams were from North or South America. The reason wasn’t that European countries didn’t want to play, it was just unrealistic for them to do so.
There was no air travel then, so players had to take ships from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean. It took over two weeks to get to the tournament, the players were there for around a month, and then two weeks back home. Some players returned back to find their jobs had been given to someone else while they were gone, while Romania only traveled after their newly crowned King guaranteed all players would have their jobs when they returned.
Back in 1930, there was no thought of playing the World Cup more often than every four years, as it would have been impossible logistically.
Infrastructure Limitations
It cost Russia over £12 billion to host the 2018 World Cup. The Qatar World Cup, where the infrastructure had to be built from the ground up, is costing at least £140 billion. That is an eye-watering amount of money, especially for a country with no football pedigree. The stadiums (as in Brazil and South Africa) will need to find a different use after the World Cup ends.
FIFA could easily mitigate these issues by granting the World Cup to nations with significant infrastructure. They have done this for the 2026 World Cup in the USA, Canada, and Mexico, countries with stadiums, hotels, and transport networks that may need improving but not starting from scratch. Even then, the World Cup attracts as many as 5,000,000 visitors to a country, so finding a host for a tournament more than once every four years would be problematic.
It Just Feels Right
The World Cup just feels right in its current four-year rotation. Putting it every two years would kill the regional international tournaments (especially the Euros which are held every four years, two years after/before each World Cup). It would also put the World Cup in direct competition with the Olympic Games, perhaps not in viewer numbers, but in terms of finding host countries and cities that would have no way to host both simultaneously. This would drastically cut the number of bids for the event.
Four years is also the right amount of time to build towards the World Cup. The Champions League is a fantastic competition, but the fact that it takes place every year means that there is nothing extraordinary about it. The four-year wait, the way players drop in and out of form, and the way fans begin to hype up the event just works.
Other Competitions
This was briefly mentioned above, but the four-year World Cup cycle allows for other regional competitions to flourish. The Euros have found their home on the even year within a World Cup cycle, and the Copa America from 2024 will also be held every four years in the same fashion. This doesn’t apply to the Africa Cup of Nations, an event held every two years (currently) in years that end with an odd number.
These regional competitions are more important than some people may realize. The dream of every country is to make the World Cup group stages, but with just 32 spots up for grabs (soon to be 48) and with them divided into specific regions, the lower ranked nations struggle to make the tournament. This is especially true in Europe, where the 55 members of UEFA are fighting for 13 places. Having the Euros allows those countries to compete at a major tournament and their fans to experience the thrill of tournament football.