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Could Infantino really push through a 64-team World Cup?Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Gianni Infantino was elected Fifa president on a manifesto that included increasing the size of the World CupByDale Johnson
If we have learned one thing from 10 years of Gianni Infantino as Fifa president, it is that more is better.
More tournaments, more games, more money.
The new-look Club World Cup, the expanded World Cup, the inflated ticket prices.
And, of course, the Super Bowl-style show that meant the half-time break at the World Cup final lasted 27 minutes and 22 seconds.
But why stop there?
Infantino appears to have thrown the door wide open to a 64-team World Cup.
“If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving,” he stated.
Except, of course, smaller countries are not denied the chance. If they are good enough, they qualify. See Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan and Uzbekistan.
Purely in terms of the competition format, it does make sense.
The top two teams in the 16 groups would go through to the knockout stage. No longer would there be a need to send a few third-placed teams through.
But is there really any other logical reason to expand to 64 teams?
Let’s start with how we got here.
The 2030 World Cup will mark 100 years since the first World Cup, which was held in Uruguay.
The tournament will primarily be hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain – but the opening three matches will be played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay as centenary hosts.
Conmebol – the South American confederation – wants more games.
In April 2025, it requested a one-off tournament of 64 teams so it could take on the full programme of the additional four groups.
Its president, Alejandro Dominguez, stated it would ensure “nobody on the planet is left out of the party”.
There has been little support from elsewhere.
Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin dismissed it as a “bad idea” for both the tournament and qualifying process.
Victor Montagliani – president of the governing body of North and Central America and the Caribbean (Concacaf) – stated last year it would damage “the broader football ecosystem”.
Asian Football Confederation (AFC) president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa agreed, saying further expansion could bring “chaos”.
None of which means it will not happen, with the decision taken by the 37 members of the Fifa Council.
Image source, Getty ImagesCape Verde were one of the success stories of the World Cup, but they were the only debutants to get out of their group
A 64-team tournament has two main plus points: a more natural format, and more opportunities for emerging nations.
It is the latter which Infantino is championing, especially after the heroics of Cape Verde.
Fifa faced criticism before the tournament, with suggestions the additional teams would not be competitive.
Then Cape Verde drew with Spain and Uruguay to finish second in their group. And the Blue Sharks gave Argentina an almighty scare by taking them to extra time in the last 16, before losing 3-2.
But the fairytale stories must be balanced with the competitive edge of the tournament.
Haiti, Iraq, Jordan, Panama, Tunisia and Uzbekistan failed to pick up a point – and this summer’s group stage had minimal jeopardy for the top nations.
Add more teams and it would be difficult to see a repeat of top-four seeds like Belgium (2022), Germany (2018), Spain (2014), Italy (2010) and France (2002) failing to make to knockout stage.
Then there is the question of where the extra places would go.
Based on this year’s qualifying, these are the additional countries who would have made it into a 64-team World Cup 2026 (with their Fifa ranking at the start of the tournament in brackets):
AFC: Indonesia (118), Oman (79), United Arab Emirates (68).
Uefa: Denmark (21), Italy (12), Poland (36).
Concacaf: Honduras (65), Jamaica (71), Suriname (125).
Conmebol: Bolivia (77), Venezuela (49).
OFC: New Caledonia (151).
Africa: Burkina Faso (62), Cameroon (44), Gabon (86), Nigeria (26).
Six of those teams are from the top 50 of Fifa’s world rankings – three from Europe, two from Africa and one from South America.
And therein lies the problem. Asia and Concacaf are weaker confederations, as was proven by performances this year.
Nine of Africa’s 10 countries got out of the group stage. But only two of nine Asian countries advanced, and just three of the six Concacaf countries – the co-hosts – made it through.
New Zealand, who got one point and finished bottom of their group, are the only country from Oceania in the world’s top 150.
There is an argument that if you extend again, you should give a greater weight of places to Europe just for competitive balance.
But, on the other hand, there are those who would argue that bringing more teams into the World Cup ultimately allows the game to develop further in those countries.
Infantino will sell the expansion as being good for the global game, but there have to be doubts that it is good for the competition.
Almost a third of Fifa’s 211 nations would be present.
Would the group stage not simply become a glorified pan-confederation qualifying competition for what is, essentially, a knockout tournament?
Expanding the World Cup to 64 teams is really just a case of bolting on four additional four-team groups.
But more groups means more time.
This year’s tournament lasted 39 days. An additional 24 matches would require 20 schedule slots. Or another five days.
But this summer’s event was unique for two reasons: multiple time zones and indoor stadiums.
Fifa was able to elongate a matchday at either end, with games scheduled over a 14-hour period so it could stay true to special time windows for television coverage.
That will not be so straightforward in the future, even with 48 teams.
Climate change is making playing in the daytime more challenging – see the record heatwaves in Europe in recent weeks.
Other countries are far less likely to have the covered venues of Atlanta, Dallas Houston and Vancouver to mitigate it.
The Saudi Arabia World Cup is likely to move to January 2035 but it is not clear how other countries will get around this growing problem.
Until this year, only once had there been dual hosts of the World Cup – Japan and South Korea in 2002.
It is hard to imagine any one country ever being capable of hosting again. Even Saudi Arabia.
Could we be looking at World Cups hosted by, for instance, the UK and Scandinavia? Or Eastern Europe?
How would an Asian or African country be able to fund hosting the World Cup?
Let’s look a just a few issues that would need to be resolved.
This summer there were 16 host cities with stadiums having capacities ranging from 43,000 to 81,000. More would be required.
There would need to be 64 individual, elite-level training facilities for the qualifying nations.
Then there is the provision of hotels for the fans, and the infrastructure and support network to move them around.
Expanding the World Cup is not as simple as giving more opportunities to more countries.
One of Infantino’s key promises when he was elected was to bring more money into the game.
Every football association now has access to $8m (£5.9m) in funding over a four-year period, with a further $1.2m (£890,000) on top for the smaller nations.
Confederations get $60m (£44.5m) to develop, promote and organise football.
It is why Infantino is likely to be re-elected unopposed next year.
This money has to come from somewhere, primarily the World Cup.
In 2017, Fifa projected a 48-team World Cup would bring in $6.5bn (£4.8bn).
In 2022, it revised the format again and added 24 games. Now, it expects to rake in $9bn (£6.7bn) this year.
A 64-team event is likely to raise more from television, sponsorship and ticket sales.
Fifa says it has a responsibility to grow the game, and its tool for this appears to be more and more football.
But critics would argue there has to be a point where expansion is no longer good for the game.
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