Gianni Infantino has opened the door to the 2030 World Cup featuring 64 teams. FIFA will examine the proposal once the current tournament ends, just a few weeks after seeing the 48-team format in action for the first time. The change would take the competition to 128 matches and mean two consecutive expansions after more than two decades with 32 participants.
Infantino’s main argument is that this World Cup has been entertaining, has brought the competition closer to new countries and has shown that international football no longer belongs exclusively to Europe and South America, even though they continue to dominate the sport. Teams from every continent have earned points and scored goals, while nine of the ten African representatives progressed beyond the group stage. Fans are happy with the tournament and, so far, the expansion has not caused the drop in quality that many had anticipated.
But the fact that the 48-team format has worked does not mean that another expansion would also work. FIFA risks interpreting every success as an invitation to continue growing to infinity and beyond. The World Cup needs to be global, but it must also retain a scale that distinguishes it from any other competition and preserves the sporting value of taking part.
More matches in an already overloaded calendar
A 64-team World Cup would increase the number of matches from the current 104 to 128. Fitting in 24 additional games would probably require several extra days of competition, bringing the tournament close to lasting another week and placing even more pressure on the calendar. Both options would increase the burden on players, clubs and domestic competitions, which already face enormous difficulties finding space during a World Cup season.
Player health once again appears to be the weakest part of the debate. Every expansion generates more revenue, larger audiences and more commercial opportunities, but also more minutes, more travel, greater physical demands and less rest. The problem would not only affect those taking part in the World Cup. The entire international calendar would have to adapt around an even longer and more demanding tournament.
Qualifying would no longer be an achievement
With 64 participants, nearly a third of FIFA’s 211 member associations would be present at the final tournament. Qualifying would lose much of its meaning in several confederations and would risk becoming a formality for the major national teams. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has already warned that the proposal would damage both the World Cup itself and the European qualifiers, while Concacaf president Victor Montagliani also does not consider another expansion to be appropriate.
The only distinctive justification would be to make it a one-off exception for the centenary. The South American proposal aims to allow Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to host complete groups instead of staging only one commemorative match each before the tournament continues in Spain, Portugal and Morocco. There could be a debate over such a move as a one-off tribute to the 1930 World Cup, but turning 64 teams into the new standard would permanently change the scale of the competition.
It would also raise the bar for hosting the tournament even further. More stadiums, hotels, transport infrastructure, training centres, security and financial capacity would be required. A World Cup that already needs six countries and three continents to celebrate its centenary could end up becoming inaccessible to almost any individual bid. The 48-team format has shown that the tournament was capable of growing. The next step should be to consolidate and protect it, rather than assume that the only possible path for the World Cup is to become increasingly bigger. Unless an exception is made… or FIFA wants to conduct another experiment.
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