WILL THE 2030 WORLD CUP HAVE 64 TEAMS?
The 2030 World Cup Finals will consist of a whopping 128 matches and 64 countries, if the head honchos of the South American football confederation have their way.
Figures from the continent's football authorities and governments met the FIFA President on Tuesday to discuss the idea and to reinforce his recent closeness to the American President, Gianni Infantino chose Trump Tower in New York City as the venue for the pow-wow.
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| Does Gianni Infantino want a 64-team finals? |
Alongside the FIFA President was its General Secretary Matthias Grafstrom, CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez, the President of Paraguay Santiago Pena, that of Uruguay Yamandu Orsi and the football chiefs of the three South American nations hosting in six years' time - Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. In other words, this is a serious proposal. The only major absentee was Argentine President Javier Milei, who had a meeting with Donald Trump, ironically.
As it stands, those South American countries are due to stage only one match each in 2030, as a nod to the tournament's centenary since its first edition in Uruguay, with the lion's share of the tournament shared between Spain (11 stadia), Portugal (3 stadia) and Morocco (six stadia).
On the table in Manhattan was the delegates' request for FIFA to commission a feasibility study to increase the finals to 64 teams, up from 2026's 48 countries and thereby give more matches to South America. First raised at a FIFA Council in March by Uruguay's Ignacio Alonso, the plan's progression now depends on bending the ear of Infantino.
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| Montevideo's Estadio Centenario hosted the first World Cup Final in 1930 and will host the opening match of the 2030 tournament |
The FIFA boss has already shown a gleeful desire for global growth, persuading the football family to increase both men's and women's World Cup finals to 48 teams and the World Club Cup from 7 to 32 sides, an instinct CONMEBOL are keen to provoke once more.
While Infantino may spy a chance to spread his support amongst the FIFA family by increasing the number of competing nations, CONMEBOL's motivation appears to be increased revenue from more matches as well as automatic qualification for all South America's teams. Big names like Chile and Peru have missed out on 2026 and would not want to miss out on a local World Cup in 2030.
A joint bid to host 2030 by Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay was rejected by the FIFA Council in favour of the Spain-Portugal-Morocco bid, with the concession of three matches and a ceremony to CONMEBOL instead to mark a hundred years of the World Cup.
South America is a small FIFA region with only 10 out of the total 211 member nations, but boasting 10 out of 22 World Cup winners and the presence of Argentina and Brazil means it punches well above its weight in football politics.
There is still a mountain to climb to expand to 64 teams and early indications are that the expansion idea does not yet have legs, with UEFA and CONMEBOL cool if not hostile to any further enlargement of the finals and an even more congested football season.
Allowing almost a third of FIFA's family to reach the finals would render the qualification process somewhat less than enthralling too, but money still talks and since 1970, FIFA has been in thrall to football's commercial value.
The idea will be discussed at next month's FIFA Council in Zurich, which leaves little time in theory to convince the world's governing body of such a substantial change, but 2030's qualifiers are not due to start until 2028, which does leave time to tweak the rules.
With six nations already hosting a 48-team tournament in 2030, an increase to 64 teams would almost cement the idea of multi-country hosting in the future.
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(c) Sean O'Conor & Soccerphile