Gianni Infantino appears to have thrown the door wide open to a 64-team World Cup, the latest signal that after a decade as Fifa president his creed remains unchanged: more is better.
More tournaments, more games, more money. The new-look Club World Cup, the expanded World Cup, inflated ticket prices and a Super Bowl-style half-time break that lasted 27 minutes and 22 seconds at the World Cup final – these have defined Infantino’s reign. Now he wants to go further.
“Gianni Infantino has opened the door to a 64-team World Cup, facing opposition from Uefa and other bodies.”
“If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving,” Infantino said. Except, of course, smaller countries are not denied the chance – if they are good enough, they qualify. Cape Verde, Curacao, Jordan and Uzbekistan all proved that.
Purely in terms of format, a 64-team tournament makes sense: the top two in 16 groups go through to the knockout stage, eliminating the need to send through third-placed teams. But the driving force appears to be political and financial.
The 2030 World Cup will mark 100 years since the first tournament in Uruguay. It will be primarily hosted by Morocco, Portugal and Spain, with the opening three matches played in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay as centenary hosts. Conmebol – the South American confederation – wants more games. In April 2025, it requested a one-off tournament of 64 teams so it could take on the full programme of additional four groups. Its president, Alejandro Dominguez, said it would ensure “nobody on the planet is left out of the party”.
There has been little support from elsewhere. Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin dismissed the idea as a “bad idea” for both the tournament and the qualifying process. Victor Montagliani, president of Concacaf, said last year it would damage “the broader football ecosystem”. Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, president of the Asian Football Confederation, agreed, warning that further expansion could bring “chaos”.
None of which means it will not happen. The decision rests with the 37 members of the Fifa Council. A 64-team tournament has two main plus points: a more natural format and more opportunities for emerging nations. That latter point is the one Infantino is championing, especially after the heroics of Cape Verde, the only debutants to get out of their group, drawing with Spain and Uruguay to finish second.
But is there any other logical reason to expand to 64 teams? The answer may depend on what Infantino and his allies on the council decide – and whether the promise of more games and more money outweighs the chorus of opposition.