Opponents arguing for maintaining quality at the expense of quantity were in the minority after FIFA approved a proposal for a leap from 32 to 48 teams at the 2026 finals. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has gotten what he wanted, a bigger World Cup, despite the obvious opposition that expanding the tournament would lower the quality threshold.
The overall scenario is exactly what Infantino proposed in his manifesto ahead of his election as FIFA president last February: more World Cup slots. He was at the forefront, as UEFA general secretary, of stretching the European Championship last year from 16 to 24 finalists. The modality for a future World Cup is for an initial 16 groups of three teams sending the top two into the knockout stage.
Thus the tournament will feature 80 matches rather than the current 64 but still fall within the current 32-day schedule, courtesy of an initial four-games-a-day format, and also a measure to appease powerful European clubs who objected to reform because of a crowded international schedule. Each team will play a minimum of two games but no more than the current maximum of seven.
The attractions are obvious: more nations can enjoy the World Cup spotlight plus the financial and popularity benefits while the extra sums generated will increase FIFA’s worldwide development budget by a conservatively estimated $1.1 billion.
Infantino wants the World Cup to be more inclusive. His reasoning is that football is more than Europe and South America; it is global.
As for the possibility that a bigger World Cup would dilute the competitiveness of the tournament, Infantino went to his favorite example of growing equality as demonstrated at the last World Cup finals in Brazil in 2014 when two powerhouses of football – Italy and England – were eliminated by lowly Costa Rica. Not, Infantino says, by the Argentina and Brazil of Messi and Neymar. Infantino also pointed out the “romances” of minnows such as Iceland, Wales and Hungary at the European Championships in France last summer as having exemplified the value of increased opportunity and development for football nations below the elite level.
Infantino defended the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams, insisting the change was based on “sporting merit” and not to make money. However, the expansion could be easily viewed as a money and power grab. The addition of more countries would go a long way toward getting Infantino re-elected in 2019 by more of FIFA’s 2011 member associations grateful for getting a better opportunity to partake in the biggest football extravaganza in the world, a tournament on par with the global popularity of the Olympics.
As for the money, there will certainly be a lot more of it with an expanded World Cup. According to FIFA research, revenue is predicted to increase to £5.29 billion for a 48-team tournament, giving a potential profit rise of £521 million. But following the huge FIFA corruption scandal that exploded last year, putting many FIFA officials behind bars and felling its top officials, including its president, such huge sums of money pouring into an organization which might not yet have put its house in order is of concern.
But since the decision to expand has been taken, this football promotion in parts of the world that today have no chance to play otherwise is an upside. Hands down, football is the world’s most popular sport and thus the more countries that play in the World Cup and the improved competitive opportunities for lower-ranked nations can only be positive. Yes, the quality of football will go down, but that will have to be the price to pay if FIFA wants to make itself and the fans happier.
