THE 2026 World Cup is not even over yet and FIFA is already fielding questions about making the next one even bigger.
Reports that the governing body is looking at adding another 16 teams to the tournament for 2030 have been circulating since a proposal was tabled at a FIFA Council meeting last year, and FIFA president Gianni Infantino fanned the flames further with comments made just days ago.
Has FIFA confirmed that the 2030 World Cup will be expanded to 64 teams?
Verdict:
FALSE, BUT
FIFA has not confirmed or endorsed the proposal to expand the 2030 World Cup from 48 to 64 teams, and no decision on the matter is imminent.
However, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said in an interview with Swiss media outlet Bluewin, published on July 12, that the proposal will be formally examined after the conclusion of the 2026 tournament.
"That is definitely an issue that will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees after this World Cup," said Infantino.
"When organising a World Cup, it is important to organise it for the whole world, not just Europe and South America, but effectively the entire world. Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup," he said.
Infantino described the current 48-team format, which is being used for the first time in the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico, as a "huge success."
"Every team played at a high level. Teams from every continent scored goals and earned at least one point. Nine out of 10 African teams reached the knockout stage.
"At the last World Cup, there were only five teams from Africa. That just goes to show how important it is to include all teams, to give them this opportunity to participate," he said.
The proposal to expand the tournament to 64 teams was originally put forward by Uruguayan football federation head Ignacio Alonso at a FIFA Council meeting in March 2025, and has since been championed by the South American Football Confederation, which formally proposed it in April 2025.
The push was framed as a fitting way to mark the World Cup's centenary in 2030, one hundred years after Uruguay hosted the inaugural tournament.
The 2030 World Cup is already set to be the most geographically sprawling edition in the tournament's history, with opening matches scheduled in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay before the competition moves to its primary hosts Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
Not everyone is on board, however.
UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin publicly called the expansion "a bad idea" after it was first raised at the FIFA Council meeting.
"It is maybe even more surprising for me than for you. I think it is a bad idea. It is not a good idea for the World Cup itself, and it is not a good idea for our qualifiers as well.
"I am not supporting that idea. I do not know where it came from," said Ceferin at UEFA's congress in Belgrade in April 2025.
Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa has also rejected the proposal.
"Personally, I do not agree. If the issue remains open to change, then the door will not only be open to expanding the tournament to 64 teams, but someone might come along and demand raising the number to 132 teams. Where would we end up then? It would become chaos," said Sheikh Salman.
Critics have argued that a 64-team tournament would further congest an already packed international football calendar, reduce the competitiveness of the group stage and make qualifying for the World Cup less meaningful.
A 64-team tournament would mean more than a quarter of FIFA's 210 men's national teams would qualify.
Under one possible format, a 64-team World Cup could feature 16 groups of four teams, with each team playing three group-stage matches and the top two from each group advancing to a 32-team knockout stage.
That would bring the total number of matches to approximately 128, up from 104 in the current 48-team format and 64 in the 32-team format used from 1998 to 2022.
FIFA has said it has a duty to analyse proposals submitted by members of its council, but has given no indication that a decision on the expansion is close.
For now, the 2030 World Cup remains a 48-team tournament. Whether it stays that way will depend on what happens in the FIFA committee rooms once the final whistle blows in the 2026 final on July 19.
Sources:
3. https://www.espn.com/soccer/
5. https://www.si.com/soccer/
