FIFA are considering a proposal made by the Uruguayan FA president Ignacio Alonso to make the 2030 global tournament a 64-team World Cup.
That is a preposterous idea even to entertain, as it lowers the quality of play, while needlessly increasing the number of matches for players, who already have to deal with a jam-packed calendar as it is.
Pushback from Europe and Beyond
UEFA President Aleksander Čeferin called the 64-team World Cup a “bad idea“, while Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa, head of the Asian Confederation, the AFC, said that it would “create chaos.”
Meanwhile, CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani opined that it would be the wrong “step for the tournament itself and for the entire football ecosystem.”
One would hope that so much pushback from several different key players at FIFA would kill the idea of a 64-team World Cup before it takes off. On the other hand, world football has gone mad, particularly over the last decade, always trying to expand tournaments to further profits.
A 64-Team World Cup: An Endless List of Reasons Why Not
Players have less and less recovery time, to say nothing of time for leisure and family. FIFA, its confederations, and FAs constantly add more matches and competitions to the calendar. The physical toll this takes on them is incalculable, to say nothing of the mental stress.
Fans also would get overwhelmed; if they wanted to follow a 64-team World Cup in full, there is literally no way of doing that.
Furthermore, the tight schedule between the summer break and the start of domestic and continental club play simply does not allow for such a gigantic World Cup; it is literally impossible to pull off.
Beyond that, a 64–team World Cup would significantly dilute the quality of the tournament, as the 48–team tournament planned for 2026 already does. A World Cup should bring together the best teams around the globe. It should provide the highest-level matches.
If, for example, Brazil were to face Tahiti, the South American giants would easily walk away with a double-digit victory, which, at the end of the day, would not do anybody any good.
Lastly, a 64–team World Cup would make qualifying all but meaningless. If so many teams can qualify, it takes away a lot of the magic of trying to get in.
This plan for the 2030 World Cup not only shows that none of this was taken into consideration, but it also simply shows another way the governing body of world football, which claims to be a nonprofit, aims to make money.
There is no tangible good for the game coming out of all the possible realisations of this idea. The same can really be said for the 48–team edition coming up in North America next summer. But that has already been decided, and is therefore a lost battle for the football community.
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Final Thoughts
The idea of having a 64–team 2030 World Cup is ludicrous. Hopefully, it will ultimately be treated as such. It doesn’t consider reality.
Sometimes FIFA do have decent ideas, such as the Club World Cup. We must keep in mind that they have to expand the game globally and that football truly belongs to everyone, but not at the detriment of the game.
Main Photo
Credit: IMAGO / Icon Sportswire
Recording Date: 13.07.2025