FIFA’s ‘Accelerated’ Plan for 64-Team World Cup Expansion Ignores One Key Thing

Plenty thought 48 teams at the 2026 World Cup was too many.

FIFA wants more. | Alex Pantling/FIFA/Getty Images

Notwithstanding the backlash against FIFA and Gianni Infantino over the proposal to effectively sell the World Cup to private investors, soccer’s world governing body is still pushing ahead with plans to further expand future editions of the men’s tournament to 64 teams.

Expansion to 48 participants in 2026 was controversial enough, with FIFA and Infantino accused of diluting the quality and prestige of the 96-year-old competition in pursuit of increased revenue. Former Ghana manager Carlos Queiroz called it “something vulgar and ordinary,” lacking “rarity” and “value” because qualifying is no longer the achievement it once was.

Infantino would argue it is part of ongoing efforts to truly globalize the World Cup.

If FIFA was able to put the 64-team model in place as soon as 2030, it would be literally double the number of World Cup qualifiers than in 2022—the last of the 32-team tournaments.

Out of the noise of the of the ‘World Cup for sale’ scandal, which has seen UEFA vow to boycott future tournaments and condemnation from Concacaf and the AFC, came multiple reports on Friday of a ‘research brief’ distributed by FIFA “considering the strategic implications of a possible expansion of the FIFA World Cup beyond the current format.”

When asked by a Swiss broadcaster during the final week of this summer’s World Cup about the possibility of increasing to 64 teams, Infantino confirmed FIFA would be “examining” the idea once the tournament had finished. That time has come and things appear to be moving fast.

FIFA has, according to ESPN, only given until Aug. 14 to appoint a firm that will assess things. FIFA then wants the findings delivered by Sept. 11, which seems geared towards making a rapid decision.

Qualifying for the 2030 tournament won’t begin until the second half of 2027, so it is feasible an expansion could be in place as soon as the next World Cup. However, at this moment, UEFA’s indefinite boycott means no European teams would be involved.

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Less Upheaval Than Increase to 48 Teams

The numbers made the 2026 World Cup a success. | Pat Isaacs/MI News/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The expansion from 32 to 48 teams in 2026 caused much more upheaval for the World Cup format than going from 48 to 64 actually would. If anything, it would simplify it.

With 64 teams, there could be 16 groups of four teams, with the top two in each qualifying for a knockout phase that starts with a round of 32. There would be no additional round and therefore no increase to the number of matches a given team needs to play. It would also eliminate the need for a complicated third-place ranking to determine some of the knockout qualifiers.

Overall, however, there would be more matches, increasing from 104 in 2026 to 128. That means more opportunity for FIFA to sell tickets and merchandise, and therefore rake in more money. For reference, 2026 is now the most profitable World Cup in history, thanks in no small part to a massively increased number of games played—up from 64 in 2022.

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Depth of Quality Won’t Support 64-Team World Cup

First-time qualifiers like Curaçao struggled in 2026. | Molly Darlington/Getty Images

Was the 2026 World Cup any better for having 48 teams involved? More countries got the chance to experience it, but the answer is probably not. In the end, it was actually very predictable and the final four was just the four highest-ranked teams going in.

Of the four first-time qualifiers—Cabo Verde, Curaçao, Uzbekistan, Jordan—none actually won a match. Of the eight extra teams in the knockouts who finished third in the group stage to advance, only Paraguay went further than the first round.

Soccer’s international scene doesn’t have the depth of quality to support a World Cup bigger than 32 qualifiers, let alone up to 64. Adding more teams won’t, in almost every instance, create magical, historic moments. It will be increasingly predictable and mundane.

Cabo Verde emerged as one of the stories of the summer this year, making it through the group stage to face Argentina in the round of 32. But that would have happened in a 32-team format, having finished second in Group H because of how toothless Uruguay and Saudi Arabia were, rather than its own organic achievement alone.

There was precious little group-stage jeopardy this summer, so imagine what impact a 64-team World Cup would have, keeping even more of the best teams away from each other.

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