March 7 – FIFA is considering an expansion of the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams following a proposal by Uruguayan football boss Ignacio Alonso at the FIFA Council.
At the end of the virtual meeting, Alonso, the chairman of the Uruguayan Football Association, proposed to expand the 48-team finals on a one-off basis to celebrate the centenary of the World Cup.
In 1930, Uruguay hosted the first World Cup tournament and they will be one of three South American co-hosts of the 2030 finals that will be played mainly in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
FIFA said: “A proposal to analyse a 64-team FIFA World Cup to celebrate the centenary of the FIFA World Cup in 2030 was spontaneously raised by a FIFA council member in the ‘miscellaneous’ agenda item near the end of the FIFA council meeting held on 5 March 2025. The idea was acknowledged as FIFA has a duty to analyse any proposal from one of its council members.”
FIFA president Gianno Infantino has always backed tournament expansion.
In 2017, FIFA expanded the finals from 32 to 48 teams, with the 2022 Qatar World Cup representing the last tournament to be played in the format that was introduced in 1998.
Under Infantino, FIFA also considered a biennial World Cup, but that idea died a quiet death. It was the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, a strong ally of Infantino, that launched the idea of a World Cup every two years. It’s understood that the idea of a 64-team World Cup did not come from Alonso himself.
In 2030, Spain, Portugal and Morocco will host the majority of matches, but an expansion to 64 teams would present major operational challenges for the host nations, have ramifications for the qualifiers and drive the carbon footprint of the tournament up to unprecedented levels.
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