Cape Verde and their goalkeeper Vozinha captured the imagination of football fans around the world(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The news - the predictable news - that FIFA has already begun a consultation process ahead of making a decision about expanding the World Cup to include 64 teams was met not only with widespread incredulity but with utter cynicism.
And there was one of the many fundamental problems with Gianni Infantino’s heinous, thankfully ill-fated scheme to sell off a chunk of the World Cup to billionaire cronies.
It meant everything suggested by FIFA will feel rotten. This expansion idea was immediately seen, certainly in Europe, as just another ruse to make more money for FIFA and for the private investors that Infantino wanted to ingratiate himself with - and make fortunes from. No-one could have been blamed for looking at it from that point of view.
The secret of comedy is timing, but there was nothing funny about FIFA saying they are, essentially, rushing through their consultation period - a decision will be made as soon as August 14 - just a couple of days after Infantino’s plot to raise $20billion by auctioning off rights packages to the World Cup was revealed. Bigger World Cup, more money for those private investor mates that, mercifully, will now not be directly involved in the tournament.
No wonder the news that the prospect of a 64-team World Cup is being accelerated by FIFA fat-cats was met with almost complete scorn. That is where power-crazed, money-obsessed Infantino has taken FIFA.
Could a 64-team World Cup really be so bad?
Yet would a 64-team World Cup be that bad? If the extra revenue was not going to private investors - and that prospect has been summarily headed off by UEFA’s threat of a boycott - would a 64-team World Cup be one of FIFA’s worst offences? No.
Curacao were another small nation to make their mark on World Cup 2026(Image: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)
Hands up, I was against the tournament being expanded to 48 from 32 teams but was soon converted once Cape Verde started doing their stuff. I was converted when Curacao equalised against Germany, even though they were hammered 7-1.
I was converted by the entertainment provided by the group stages. I was converted by the joy of every nation’s set of fans.
The only downside I could find was that the third games in the group stages were open to contrivance. That is because whittling 48 teams down to 32 for the knockout stages involves having eight third-placed finishers as qualifiers.
As it happened, there was no evidence of contrivance, but quite simply, 64 into 32 goes better. Sixteen groups of four, top two in each group qualify. Easy.
Gianni Infantino is under increasing pressure to stand down as FIFA president(Image: Bradley Collyer/PA Wire)
The next World Cup in 2030 - the centenary edition - is being staged in Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay hosting opening-round matches. There will be enough venues to accommodate 64 teams.
As UEFA and its president Aleksander Ceferin are now at permanent odds with FIFA and Infantino, they might not like the idea of an expansion to 64 teams. They will probably oppose it.
Yet the Euros is a 24-team competition, meaning 43.63 per cent of its member nations qualify for the finals. A 64-team World Cup would mean 30.34 per cent of FIFA member nations would qualify.
Spain lifted the World Cup trophy at the end of a 48-team tournament that was widely deemed a success(Image: David Ramos/Getty Images)
Those of us who were originally in the camp that thought the World Cup should be for the elite only have long lost the argument. It turns out it was not a bad one to lose. Did you begrudge any of the teams at the 2026 World Cup their time in the sun?
And now it is a 48-team tournament - there will be no consultation process about any possible reduction in competitors - what is an extra 16 teams between friends? Italy might even qualify.
Understandably, an expansion would be negatively linked with Infantino’s scheming. But he will be long gone by then, surely. And the 64 teams who compete at the 2030 World Cup can enjoy themselves, untainted by his presidency and private ownership.
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UEFA tells Gianni Infantino to drop World Cup private ownership plan and Football fans force FIFA U-turn as World Cup plot is scrapped are relevant background to FIFA’s wider World Cup controversy, with UEFA warning over the proposal and FIFA later scrapping the plan after backlash.
Gianni Infantino defends World Cup sale plan as UEFA weighs boycott also helps explain the pressure surrounding the issue, as UEFA considered action over FIFA’s controversial proposal.
Background and fallout
The expansion debate now sits alongside the collapse of Infantino’s attempt to sell stakes in World Cup rights, a move that drew fierce opposition across the game. The consultation over 64 teams is being viewed through that lens, even though the tournament format itself is a separate question.
The scale of the criticism is tied to the timing. FIFA’s decision to move quickly, with a decision due as soon as August 14, came just a couple of days after Infantino’s plot to raise $20billion by auctioning off rights packages to the World Cup was revealed. That is why even a routine discussion about more places in the finals has been treated with suspicion.
But the footballing argument for a bigger World Cup remains. Cape Verde and their goalkeeper Vozinha captured the imagination of football fans around the world, while Curacao showed that smaller nations can make their mark on World Cup 2026.
