The World Cup being a 64-team tournament will create organizational challenges – so could Gianni Infantino’s idea work? | Football news

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The World Cup being a 64-team tournament will create organizational challenges – so could Gianni Infantino’s idea work? | Football news

This year’s World Cup is finally over – and after 48 teams took part, it was a long, long tournament. But as we bid farewell to the 2026 edition, the competition may be getting even bigger.

The president of FIFA Gianni Infantino says any extension to the 2030 World Cup – where six countries will host the tournament – will be discussed now the 2026 World Cup is over.

South American countries Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay – who are scheduled to host one match each before the tournament is transferred to the main hosts Spain, Portugal and Morocco – they call to host many games.

And one solution FIFA is discussing is a 64-team tournament. More teams, more matches, more talking points.

So if the 2030 World Cup celebrates its centenary with 16 more teams than we had this summer, what would that look like?

Six-week tournament!

The 64-team World Cup will create a number of group stages. There will have to be 16 groups of four, since 64 are not equally divided into three. That means group games will increase from 72 to 96.

The 48-team tournament played 72 matches over a grueling 16-day period – an average of 4.5 matches per day. If FIFA tries to average 4.5 games a day in the 64-team division, the first part of the tournament will last three weeks.

Given that the 32nd round of the World Cup needs another three weeks to finish, that would mean a six-week tournament.

And if we consider that there are several weeks to prepare for each country’s tournament, the 1,664 players who participated in the World Cup will have to devote two months to this tournament.

More goals than ever?

Yes, many games will set new records for most goals in the tournament. Going from 64 regular games to 104 in 2026 set new records. There are 308 goals in this year’s World Cup, compared to 172 four years ago.

But what was interesting about the 2026 World Cup was that the goals were flying in at a high rate per game. There have been an average of 2.96 goals per game this year, compared to around 2.6 over the past three competitions.

One of the reasons for the high number of goals in this World Cup is the huge difference between the best and worst teams. There was a bigger average gap between the teams in this world cup according to the FIFA world rankings than ever before.

And this difference is important. Sky Sports the data shows that the goal difference of the top team in the game tends to increase as the FIFA ranking gap widens – although upsets remain the norm.

No more third place drama

The 64-team tournament allows for one very simple thing: the third-place qualification route to the knockout round will have to be scrapped.

The only way to make the round of 32 this way is if the top two teams out of all 16 teams qualify for the final stages.

So hard calculations on how much goal difference Scotland need to qualify as the third-placed team may have to go.

However, if the top two teams are the only ones from the group to qualify, it will revert to the 32-team World Cup format where most of the final round of group matches were ‘dead rubber’ sessions between teams that have already qualified for the next stage, or teams that have already been eliminated.

FIFA will likely have to restore goal difference above the 64-team record to create enough risk in the third and final round of group matches.

Goodbye to ‘one host’?

If this becomes a long-term plan from FIFA, the 64-team tournament will ensure that the World Cup will no longer be dominated by one country.

In the current competition with 48 teams, 15 stadiums are used for 12 teams and 104 games. Using those numbers as a template, going to 64 teams would mean 20 reasons would be needed in 128 games.

So if England is to host the tournament, almost the entire Premier League will have to give up their stadiums this summer, assuming Wembley will host games as well. Imagine Brazil playing in Bournemouth…

Of course, having more countries participating is the way forward for international football. The 2028 European Championships are across the UK and Ireland. Six countries will host the 2030 World Cup. The 2032 European Championships are in Italy and Turkey.

But Saudi Arabia is the only host of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, and when the 48-team World Cup was considered for the Qatar World Cup in 2022, it was unlikely that the Gulf country would host the tournament.

Logically, there are question marks if 64 teams is the way forward in the long term.

Who can qualify for the 64-team World Cup?

A World Cup with 64 teams will mean that 30 percent of all FIFA countries will enter the World Cup. But how would the shares be divided?

With a third of the 48 teams, Europe has the largest share of qualification spots in the current tournament system. Using the same logic would mean that 21 European countries would take part in a 64-team competition. Maybe Italy will qualify and…

Most of all confederations can get more places in the World Cup, if we use the current model as an example.

A rough estimate of the organization’s share, using FIFA’s current percentage breakdown…