2JUL

FIFA calls 48 teams right, eyes 64

2 min read

10:39UTC

Infantino called the expanded format "100 percent" the right call on 13 July and said FIFA's committees will examine a 64-team tournament for 2030.

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Key takeaway

Infantino defended the 48-team format and sent a 64-team option for 2030 to FIFA's committees.

Gianni Infantino called the 48-team World Cup format "100 percent" the right call on Monday 13 July and said FIFA's committees will examine expanding to 64 teams for 2030⁠¹. France, Spain, England and Argentina made up the last four, the same four confederation-heavyweight names the smaller format tended to produce. A record ten African entrants produced no semi-finalist, and neither Norway nor Switzerland, the two outsiders to reach the quarter-finals, went further than that.

The structural objections raised through the tournament remain unanswered in anything FIFA has published. Thirty-two of 48 teams go through, which makes elimination harder than qualification. Where both sides in a final group match can qualify on the same scoreline, the incentive runs toward playing for that result and letting it eliminate a third team.

The calendar carries the other cost. Top European leagues restart roughly a month after the final, and the players who went deepest get the shortest break. A 64-team field would add another round of fixtures to the same window, which is the part of the proposal FIFA's committees will have to price rather than vote on.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the World Cup's new 48-team format, used for the first time this year, was '100 percent' the right decision, and said FIFA will now look at expanding even further, to 64 teams, for the next World Cup in 2030. Critics argue the bigger format has a built-in problem: with two-thirds of teams advancing from the group stage, it is now easier to qualify for the knockout rounds than to get eliminated in the groups, which can make some final group games less competitive. FIFA has not publicly addressed that criticism.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The 32-of-48 advancement structure is the mechanical source of the collusion-incentive critique: with two-thirds of the field progressing, a team can calculate its safest path through a final group match well before kickoff, a dynamic the older 32-team format's stricter cut did not permit to the same degree.

That the eventual last four, France, Spain, England and Argentina, were the most conventional grouping of football powers the draw could have produced undercuts the format's stated promise of broadening genuine title contention even as it delivered record attendance and goal totals.

What could happen next?

Risk
Expanding to 64 teams without addressing the 32-of-48 advancement critique would extend the same dead-rubber incentive structure across a still larger field.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from United States

United States

LeftRight

Consensus view: Infantino's own case for expansion rests on scale: the 48-team format set an all-time World Cup attendance record of 3,605,357 across the group stage alone, beating the previous record set across the entire 1994 tournament in the United States.

Counter-view: Independent analysis from outlets including Al Jazeera and CNN has documented a structural flaw the attendance figures do not address: because 32 of 48 teams advance from the groups, it is mathematically harder to be eliminated in the group stage than to qualify for the knockouts in the first place, which raises the risk of dead-rubber final group games and mutually convenient results.

Key tension: Whether a format judged a success on attendance and goals-per-game has also been judged on the competitive-integrity question its own confederations and independent analysts raised throughout the tournament, since no source found in this reporting shows FIFA's own review addressing the incentive structure directly.

Sources:Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour)·Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour)

Mentions:Gianni Infantino →Norway →Switzerland →Spain →United States →Al Jazeera →Argentina →England →France →World Cup →FIFA →

First Reported In

Update #44 · Spain win with one goal and one conceded

Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour)· 20 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Africa's last team out as France win

A record ten African entrants producing no semi-finalist is competitive evidence FIFA has not addressed in declaring the 48-team format vindicated.

Occurred 9 Jul 2026

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FIFPRO says one match in five was too hot

FIFPRO's heat data sharpens the workload argument against Infantino's push for a 64-team 2030 format.

Occurred 16 Jul 2026

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This Event

FIFA calls 48 teams right, eyes 64

FIFA is moving toward a further expansion without answering the structural objections raised against the format it has just run.

Led to

CONMEBOL renews its push for 64 teams in 2030

Domínguez's public restatement builds on Infantino's earlier openness to a 64-team 2030 format.

Occurred 21 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

Council on Foreign Relations

CFR's analysis identified 18.75% of the 48-team field facing access barriers — the only available quantification after the State Department admitted it has none. The explicit contrast with South Africa 2010's visa waiver for all ticket holders positions the US as a regressive host by historical standards.

New York commuters / Assemblyman Bhalla

Bhalla framed Penn Station's closures as a class issue: 'For the 99 percent that can't afford to attend the games, it would be nice to at least know how you're going to get home from work.' Eight closures lock 650,000 daily commuters out for tournament traffic, with one on a Monday rush hour.

French Football Federation

The FFF called an 11:00 CEST press conference for 28 July, at its Paris headquarters, following an extraordinary executive committee meeting, at which Zinedine Zidane is expected to be presented as head coach succeeding Didier Deschamps. As of this writing no communique confirms the appointment, contract length or start date.

Morocco

Morocco is pushing for the 2030 final at its Grand Stade Hassan II in Casablanca, a planned 115,000-seat venue that would be the world's largest football stadium on completion. The venue is contested by a Spanish petition for the Santiago Bernabeu, and FIFA has fixed neither the venue nor the tournament's proposed 64-team format.

FIFA

FIFA's first tournament report, published 27 July, itemises nearly 300,000 accredited personnel, 73,700 security staff and 300,000 square metres of custom-grown turf, with no revenue or cost figure attached. As a Swiss association answering to its own Congress rather than a treasury, FIFA has followed the same operational-before-financial sequence it used after Qatar 2022.

Javier Tebas / La Liga

La Liga president Javier Tebas said on 21 July that FIFA's system is rotten from the root and that Gianni Infantino's time as president has, in his words, concluded. Tebas has no vote in FIFA's process, so days after the IOC declined jurisdiction over a separate ethics complaint, he used the only instrument he has.