Infantino floats a 64-team World Cup before the 2030 tournament has even kicked off
Six weeks before the United States, Mexico and Canada stage the biggest World Cup yet, the FIFA president is already signalling that 48 teams will not be enough.
The 2026 World Cup, which kicks off in Mexico City on 11 June 2026 and runs across the United States, Canada and Mexico, will field 48 teams, up from 32 in Qatar 2022. Six weeks before its opening whistle, FIFA president Gianni Infantino is already telling the assembled press in New York that 48 may not be the ceiling.
On 12 July 2026, speaking ahead of the 2026 final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, Infantino said the possibility of expanding the next men's World Cup to 64 teams is "definitely an issue that will be examined and discussed." He called the 48-team format "a huge success" and framed any further expansion in the language FIFA has used for a decade: the World Cup, he said, "should be for everyone, not just Europe and South America."
The headline is the 64-team figure. The story is the politics of who pays, who watches and who gets to host.
A bigger table, a thinner share
The arithmetic of 64 teams is unforgiving. The 2026 tournament's 104 matches, 12 groups of four and a knockout bracket that funnels 32 of 48 into the round of 32 have already stretched FIFA's host-city template to 16 venues across three countries. Adding 16 more teams would imply either more groups of three, which compresses the group stage and inflates the probability of dead rubbers, or a return to a four-per-group format that pushes the match count past 120.
More matches is, on FIFA's own spreadsheet, more inventory: more broadcast windows, more sponsorship slots, more ticket revenue. The 2026 tournament is projected to deliver record receipts on the back of 48-team scale; the marginal return on a 64-team edition in 2034, the year Saudi Arabia hosts after a controversial award, is the financial question that frames Infantino's "discussion."
There is a less flattering read. Ties between FIFA's commercial leadership and the Gulf monarchy now hosting the next edition are well documented in the bidding process that awarded the 2034 tournament. A 64-team World Cup staged in Saudi Arabia would test logistics that even a country the size of the United States barely absorbed at 48.
The geopolitics of who gets in
Infantino's "not just Europe and South America" framing is the public case for expansion. The technical case is more equivocal. Confederation slots already allocate roughly half the field to Asia, Africa, North and Central America, Oceania and the Caribbean via expanded paths that began in 2026. Adding 16 teams without a corresponding recalibration would dilute the confederation quotas that smaller federations lobbied for over two decades.
The political case is the one Infantino actually made. "The World Cup should be for everyone," the FIFA president said on 12 July, in remarks carried across FIFA's official channels and relayed by transfermarkt's coverage of his press appearance. The phrase is a tell: it positions the federation's flagship product as a development tool rather than a competitive tournament, which is the line FIFA has used to justify expanded access for lower-ranked nations since the 2026 format was confirmed.
There is a structural critique embedded in that framing, and it comes from inside the football family. Former players, confederation presidents and the managers of Europe's top clubs have argued, in successive consultation rounds, that adding teams below a competitive threshold produces lopsided group-stage scorelines, fewer meaningful matches and a diluted product. Infantino's own announcement in New York, that 48 has been "a huge success," is itself a judgment the early data does not yet support: the group stage is six weeks away at publication.
What a 64-team tournament would actually cost
Hosting infrastructure is the hard constraint. The 2026 tournament demanded 16 stadiums of at least 40,000 seats, training bases in every host market, transport corridors across three national jurisdictions and a security footprint coordinated across federal, state and provincial agencies. Saudi Arabia's bid dossier for 2034 commits to building or renovating 15 stadiums in five cities; a 64-team format would push that number up.
Broadcast rights are the soft constraint and the bigger prize. FIFA reported commercial revenue of roughly $7.2bn for the 2023-2026 cycle tied to the men's World Cup; another 16 matches at premium per-match rates, sold into markets that the 48-team edition will have newly primed, is the upside Infantino is pricing in. The downside is calendar congestion. UEFA's expanded Champions League, the FIFA Club World Cup relaunched in 2025 and a 64-nation World Cup all compete for the same window.
Player welfare groups, including FIFPro, have filed formal objections to the match load that the current calendar already imposes. A 64-team World Cup does not directly add to club schedules, but it tightens the recovery window between confederation windows and the tournament itself, which is where injury risk accumulates.
The decision that comes next
FIFA's council, not the congress of 211 member associations, is the body that ratifies format changes. A formal proposal for 64 teams at the 2034 World Cup would need to clear the council ahead of the 2027 cycle. The 2034 tournament is awarded; the format is not. Infantino's 12 July remarks are best read as the opening of that negotiation, not its conclusion.
The Atlantic council file is the one to watch. UEFA has the most to lose from further dilution and the most leverage as the federation whose clubs supply most of the players and most of the broadcast audience. The Asian Football Confederation and the Confederation of African Football have the most to gain. FIFA's commercial partners, whose contracts run on four-year cycles, will price the new format into the next rights auction regardless of how the council votes, which is the quiet pressure point that often determines these decisions in private.
What Infantino announced on 12 July is a sentence, not a plan. The plan, when it comes, will be written in stadium costs, broadcast receipts and the political weight of the federations whose votes matter most.
This publication treats expansion as a commercial and political story first and a sporting story second. The wire coverage has leaned on Infantino's framing of "access"; the structural critique, centred on confederation quotas, calendar load and host-country capacity, runs through that framing rather than around it.
Wire provenance
This editorial synthesis draws on the following public wire/social posts:
- https://t.me/transfermarkt/