How to optimise tournament draws : the case of the FIFA World Cup

Abstract

The organisers of major sports competitions use different policies with respect to constraints in the group draw. Our paper aims to rationalise these choices by analysing the trade‐off between attractiveness (the number of games played by teams from the same geographic zone) and fairness (the departure of the draw mechanism from a uniform distribution). A parametric optimisation model is formulated and applied to the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup draws. A flaw of the draw procedure is identified: the pre‐assignment of the host to a group unnecessarily increases the distortions. All Pareto efficient sets of draw constraints are determined via simulations. The proposed framework can be used to find the optimal draw rules and justify the non‐uniformity of the draw procedure for the stakeholders.