Fifa not planning 64-team men’s World Cup as the World body would face opposition to 64-team plan in future.
Fifa not planning 64-team men’s World Cup despite Infantino’s Trump Tower summit.
Even though Fifa president Gianni Infantino met with a group of South American politicians in New York to explore the notion, the organisation does not intend to expand the men’s World Cup to 64 teams for the tournament’s centenary in 2030.
In the first official talks regarding a proposal that was brought up informally by the Uruguayan Football Association at a Fifa Council meeting last March, Infantino met with the heads of state of Uruguay and Paraguay, the president of the South American confederation, Conmebol, and the presidents of the Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay federations at Fifa’s offices in Trump Tower on Tuesday.
FIFA’s official stance is that it will talk about World Cup expansion with all of its stakeholders and that it has an obligation to take council ideas into consideration. Behind the scenes, however, there is doubt regarding the feasibility of extending the tournament to 64 participants.
The World Cup will have 48 teams for the first time next year, and the governing body has deviated from tradition by holding the competition in six nations across three continents in 2030. In honour of the competition’s South American beginnings in 1930, the first three games will be held in Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. After that, the majority of the tournament will take place in Morocco, Spain, and Portugal.
“Gianni would not get that vote through Council even if he wanted to,” a Fifa source said. “The overwhelming feeling around the table – and not just in Europe – is that 64 teams would damage the World Cup. There’d be too many uncompetitive matches and it would risk damaging the business model.”
The Uefa president, Aleksander Ceferin, described it as a “bad idea” that would reduce the quality of the tournament and undermine the qualifying competition. The Concacaf president, Victor Montagliani, said: “They [Fifa] can study all they want, but it just doesn’t feel right.” Significantly, both men are Fifa vice-presidents.