19APR

CONMEBOL renews its push for 64 teams in 2030

1 min read

11:22UTC

Alejandro Domínguez restated South America's case for a 64-team 2030 tournament with the 48-team version barely 48 hours finished. FIFA has confirmed nothing.

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Key takeaway

Domínguez is pressing for 64 teams in 2030 before the 48-team tournament has been audited.

Alejandro Domínguez, president of CONMEBOL (the South American Football Confederation), publicly restated the case for a 64-team World Cup in 2030 ¹. The proposal has a specific hook: 2030 marks a century since the first tournament, held in Uruguay in 1930, and CONMEBOL's argument leans on the centenary as grounds for a one-off enlargement.

Gianni Infantino got there first, declaring the 48-team format a success and signalling appetite for 64 , and Domínguez is now pressing that case with the tournament barely finished, while the first 48-team tournament's own record remains unsettled. FIFA (world football's governing body) has confirmed nothing on the proposal, and any decision would run through its Council rather than through a confederation president's public remarks.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

CONMEBOL, the South American football confederation, wants the 2030 World Cup to have 64 teams instead of the current 48. FIFA has not agreed to this or ruled it out. This year's tournament was the first with 48 teams, up from 32, so this is a debate about whether to expand again just one cycle later.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

CONMEBOL's push for 64 teams in 2030 is tied to South America's own hosting stake: the 2030 World Cup opens with three centenary matches in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay before the tournament shifts to Spain, Portugal and Morocco, giving CONMEBOL members a direct commercial interest in a larger format regardless of the competitive case.

Infantino calling the 48-team format "100 percent" right while saying FIFA's committees will still examine 64 teams for 2030 is not a contradiction in FIFA's governance structure: the president can defend a format publicly while committees run a separate technical review, since any 2030 format change requires Council approval FIFA has not yet scheduled.

Escalation

Open: FIFA has not confirmed or rejected the 64-team proposal, and no Council vote has been scheduled.

What could happen next?

Opportunity
South American federations stand to gain commercially and competitively from a larger 2030 field, since Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay co-host the tournament's opening matches.

Sources:ESPN

Mentions:Alejandro Domínguez →South American Football Confederation →FIFA →Gianni Infantino →Uruguay →World Cup →

First Reported In

Update #45 · A prosecutor for the brawl, an outlet for the goals

ESPN· 21 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

FIFA calls 48 teams right, eyes 64

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

Occurred 12 Jul 2026

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FIFPRO says one match in five was too hot

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

Occurred 16 Jul 2026

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This Event

CONMEBOL renews its push for 64 teams in 2030

The expansion argument is being made while the evidence from the first 48-team tournament is still unaudited.

Led to

The fight over the 2030 final

CONMEBOL's 21 July renewed push for 2030 expansion sits behind the hosting fight over the proposed 64-team format.

Occurred 22 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

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.

Mexico City government

Head of government Clara Brugada presented a closing report on 22 July crediting the tournament with 44 billion pesos of economic activity, 2,000-plus accelerated public works and 100,000 formal jobs in June alone. The city has not published the method behind that figure, and three other Mexican bodies count the same five weeks differently.

Town of Foxborough

Foxborough answered Kraft Group's June lawsuit on 7 July with a 61-page counterclaim, calling the stadium's owners 'a collection of multibillion-dollar corporations' trying to shift its $7.8 million security bill onto taxpayers. The town says its licensing power and its billing power run through the same board, and it wants the court to award its own costs too.