Alexandro Garibaldi
Bang Bang
Groups of five would really mess with the scheduling.
You are adding another 32 games to the first round which already take up a high percentage of the of the overall comp - 80 rather than 48 1st round games before the 32 knockout games.
With an uneven number of teams in each group, there will be bye days for each team with each wave of first round fixtures. No the only problem, but the worst thing about that they couldn't schedule all teams to play their last group game at the same time. So one team will be finished just sitting around watching the other four teams play their final game to see if they make it through. See Germany v Austria in 1982 for why that can't happen.
So then you have to have 10 groups of four instead. Do you send home four of the second places, eliminating sixty per cent of the competition in the first round? Because you can't keep all but 8 of the teams and have a round of 32 because then all four in some groups would be going through and that really wouldn't be worth turning up for.
Does anybody running football ever think how their ideas would work before they start making them public?
Good points. It's going to have to be 64 teams then...