The World Cup is a soccer competition in which national teams compete for the title of world champion. Each country that qualifies for the tournament is divided into groups that advance through brackets by winning matches. The group winners then advance to a quarter-final stage, while the remaining countries play out a second-round qualification process to determine their final places. The final phase of the World Cup is called the "play-off" and is contested by the two highest ranked unbeaten teams from the preliminary round. Argentina were the most successful team with five titles, followed by Brazil with four. Since then, both nations have been involved in bribery scandals before and during games. South Africa were expelled from the tournament in 1986 after apartheid; Israel withdrew in 1980 when they entered the tournament; and Egypt withdrew after an uprising in 2011. There have been attempts to change the format of the World Cup so it does not have such a dramatic ending. For example, a plan proposed in 2001 would have reduced the number of teams from 32 to 16 by combining the current eight top teams into a single group. The proposal was made by Russian economist Andrei Schleifer who argued that fewer games would lead to more exciting football. However, the plan never got beyond the discussion stage as officials decided to stick with the current format.