Infantino floats 64-team World Cup before 2030
FIFA will consider expanding the World Cup to 64 teams before 2030, a move that would increase the commercial and logistical burden on European co-hosts Spain and Portugal.
FIFA will examine expanding the World Cup from 48 to 64 teams ahead of the 2030 tournament, president Gianni Infantino said. The proposal would add significant scale to an event that currently requires a 104-match schedule.
The tournament field sat at 32 teams from 1998 to 2022. The 2026 edition is the first with 48 teams, and with two semi-finals, a third-place playoff and the final remaining from its schedule. A jump to 64 teams would inevitably require more venues, extended broadcast windows, and complex travel logistics across multiple host nations.
The 2030 edition is planned as a multi-continent effort. Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay are currently scheduled to host one match each, with Morocco, Portugal, and Spain staging the remainder. Infantino indicated a 64-team field could mean the South American nations each host a four-team group instead of a single match.
For European football, an expanded tournament places greater infrastructure demands on Spain and Portugal as primary hosts. It also stretches the competition calendar further, squeezing the available schedule for lucrative European domestic leagues and their commercial partners.
Infantino told the Swiss outlet Bluewin that he considered the 48-team field a "huge success." He highlighted that nine out of ten African teams reached the knockout stage this year, compared to five at the previous tournament.
“Every team played at a high level. Teams from every continent scored goals and earned at least one point,” Infantino said. “That just goes to show how important it is to include all teams – to give them this opportunity to participate.”
The FIFA president framed the potential expansion as a necessity for global development. “When organising a World Cup, it’s important to organise it for the whole world – not just Europe and South America – but effectively the entire world,” he said.
“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,” he added.
