How would a 64-team World Cup work? Gianni Infantino opens door to further tournament expansion

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The Independent

13 July 2026

The

first ever 48-team World Cup

is nearing its conclusion - and already,

Fifa

president

Gianni Infantino

is hinting at further expansion.

Infantino has

opened the door at expanding the tournament to 64 teams

after ruling this year’s bumper edition as a resounding success.

He successfully pushed for the growth of the

World Cup

to 48 teams when it was approved by the Fifa Council in 2017 but is likely to encounter greater resistance in his quest to go even bigger, with

Uefa

Aleksander Ceferin

among those to think the suggestion is a “bad idea”.

Such expansion would represent a doubling of participating nations in the space of just two editions and eight years. Before this year’s tournament, a 32-team

had been the norm since 1998.

But if a proposal for a 64-team

was passed before the 2030 edition held across Spain, Portugal and Morocco, how would it work?

Major reform would be required if Fifa expanded the

to 64 teams by 2030, just as was the case for this year’s tournament.

Extra qualifying berths would first be distributed among the confederations. For the 2026

, the Confederation of African Football (Caf), Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and

Concacaf

, the governing body for football in North and Central America and the Caribbean, benefited the most from the expansion, seeing their allotment effectively double, if you include the possibility of qualification through the play-offs. Uefa, meanwhile, received only three extra places in an allotment increase of just 23 percent, which drew the ire of European nations.

open image in gallery

Curacao were a beneficiary of the expanded

, becoming the smallest ever nation to qualify (PA)

Infantino stresses inclusivity when talking about

expansion so Europe, the most represented continent at the tournament, would again be unlikely to come out as a major beneficiary of the 64-team

- though given the scale of this particular increase their allotment would be expected to rise to at least 20.

Elsewhere, the Oceania Football Federation would likely get another automatic berth despite New Zealand being the only nation inside the top 150 let alone 100. The AFC, Caf and Concacaf would also receive a further significant boost, opening doors for much smaller nations - like Curacao, Uzbekistan and Jordan - to qualify. There isn’t much wiggle room for Comnebol, though - they already have six direct qualification places plus a route via the play-offs for a confederation only made up of 10 places, so Fifa can’t offer too much in the way of new berths to South America or risk making qualification there redundant.

There may also be changes to the format confederations use for qualifying. The AFC and Concacaf significantly changed their formats for the 2026

- Concacaf switched from one “Octagonal” league to a multi-round group system, while the AFC expanded to five qualifying rounds to accommodate their eight direct qualification spots. Similar reform could be required again, while Fifa’s play-off system would also need a rejig.

had to add four more groups to accommodate for the expanded 48-team tournament (Getty Images)

Fifa could opt for a massive overhaul the format of the

, maybe leaning towards Uefa’s shift from group stage to league phase in their continental competitions.

But as things stand, a 64-team

would just mean more groups - four to be exact, on top of the 12 we already have this year.

In that case, the big change would see third-place qualifiers written out of the tournament. At the 2026

, a round of 32 was added to accommodate the rise to 48 teams, which meant that eight teams who finished third in their group also qualified - a departure from the black and white format of “top two or eliminated” we are all so familiar with.

However, Fifa would have to return to that system if they expanded the

to 64 teams, because the top two from each group would fill out a round of 32.

This would be the only major change to the

finals

Fifa kept the same four-team group stage plus knockouts format. If they increased the size of groups, or did away with groups altogether, then more knockout rounds may be introduced. An example of what this extra round could look like could be the knockouts play-off as seen in the Champions League.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has opened the door to expanding the

again (Getty)

You can’t write anything out with Fifa if there’s

commercial or financial benefit

attached to it, as would be the case with a 64-team

. But for the meantime, this expansion looks highly unlikely.

Infantino said that this potential growth is something Fifa “will be examining after the World Cup” but amid the torrent of backlash he is receiving in regards to the

suspending of USA striker Folarin Balogan’s red-card ban

- a development which came after

US president Donald Trump intervened

- his priorities will be batting off resignation calls and regaining a semblance of stability.

Fifa will surely not have time to pass this proposal for implementation at the 2030

and Infantino may not be in power long enough to see this particular vision through before the 2034 edition in Saudi Arabia, given the heightened scrutiny he finds himself under.

And while South American federation Conmebol officially proposed this exact expansion in April 2025, many other footballing leaders have dismissed it. AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa said further expansion would bring "chaos" while Concacaf chief Victor Montagliani feared such a suggestion coming to pass would damage "the broader football ecosystem". This is from two confederations which would

benefit most from an expanded World Cup

The ultimate decision will rest with the Fifa Council, but there are no signs these changes will come to fruition in the near future.

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