FIFA president Gianni Infantino has acknowledged that the governing body will explore expanding the World Cup further to a 64-team tournament in 2030, following his declaration that the 2026 edition has been a resounding success.
Infantino has confirmed that FIFA will look into enlarging the World Cup by an additional 16 nations ahead of the next edition in 2030. The competition was expanded to a 48-team format for the first time this summer, having previously featured 32 teams from 1998 through to 2022.
The 2030 tournament will be spread across six nations and three continents - Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay are to host one match, with the crux of the tournament split between Morocco, Portugal, and Spain, as per The Mirror.
FIFA held discussions in September last year over expanding the tournament once more for 2030 after receiving a formal proposal, and Infantino confirmed that further talks would follow this summer's competition.
The FIFA chief stated in an interview with Swiss media outlet Bluewin: "It (a 64-team tournament) is definitely an issue that will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees after this World Cup." Infantino went on to state that the World Cup is "for the whole world, not just Europe and South America."
He also added: "Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup. You can see that the quality of the teams is extremely high - and it's getting higher and higher, all over the world. If you don't give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they'll lack the incentive to keep improving."
Infantino has declared the current World Cup with 48 teams was "100 percent a success" despite opinions being split. Some view the group stage as being diminished with certain matches lacking quality while it was ultimately more difficult to get eliminated than to advance to the knockouts.
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A 64-team tournament would mean that more than a quarter of FIFA's 210 men's international teams would compete, and that could significantly affect the perceived difficulty of qualifying.
UEFA president Aleksandar Ceferin spoke against the concept of a 64-team World Cup and called the proposal a "bad idea." His North American counterpart, CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani, shares a similar perspective, saying it was "not a great idea."
Source: Alloutsoccer.com
