What is more stupid is having 24 teams. What is the point of qualification tournament as about half the countries will qualify.
Biggest issue for me is it lowering the standard of the competition by letting the crap countries in.
If they have to have 24 teams I'd have the lowest ranked 16 play in a group round first with the top 8 going through to another group round with the 8 top ranked teams. Then business as usual.
