Infantino Opens Door to 64-Team World Cup After 2026 Tournament

As the 2026 World Cup winds down, FIFA president Gianni Infantino will face a crucial decision: should football’s biggest stage grow to 64 teams? The new 48-team format launching in 2026 has already shifted the game. Nine out of 10 African teams reached the knockout stages—a huge jump from the previous World Cup, when only five African nations made it through.

Infantino has run FIFA since 2016, and expansion has been his signature move from day one. Within his first year, the council greenlit the jump to 48 teams for 2026. Now there’s talk of going even bigger. In April 2025, South American confederation Conmebol officially proposed pushing the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams.

A 64-team tournament would mean 128 matches and let nearly a third of all 211 FIFA member nations qualify. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will host most of the 2030 event, but Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay get three opening matches to mark the tournament’s centennial. Uruguay hosted that first World Cup back in 1930.

The proposal has split the football world. UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin called it a “bad idea” for both the tournament and qualifying rounds. AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa warned it would trigger “chaos”. Concacaf’s Victor Montagliani said the idea “doesn’t feel right” and would harm the wider football system.

Not everyone’s opposed. Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House’s World Cup task force, said the United States could bid to host the 2038 World Cup and would have the capacity to “handle it” at 64 teams.

Infantino has called the inaugural 48-team World Cup “a huge success”. Whether he’ll champion a 64-team format beyond 2026 is still an open question, but his track record suggests expansion will stay high on his list.