South American soccer head: Expand 2030 World Cup to 64 teams

• The head of CONMEBOL, the governing body of South American soccer, called on FIFA to expand the 2030 World Cup. He is the second official to call for a 64-team tournament.
• Alejandro Domínguez said expansion would be a unique way to honor the 100th anniversary of the world’s biggest sporting event.
• The U.S., Canada and Mexico will host the 2026 World Cup, which will be the first to expand from 32 teams to 48.

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The FIFA World Cup is the world’s biggest and most popular sporting event — by a mile. Now, there is yet another call to make it even bigger, at least for the 2030 competition.

Who wants to expand the World Cup tournament?

On Thursday, April 10, the president of CONMEBOL, the governing body of soccer in South America, became the latest high-ranking official to propose expanding the World Cup from 48 teams to 64.

Alejandro Domínguez believes the expansion would be a unique way to celebrate the event’s 100th anniversary. It would also be a one-time change to the format, at least for now.

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The 2030 World Cup is already scheduled to spread out over the largest geographic area in tournament history, with six countries on three continents hosting games. Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Spain, Portugal and Morocco will all have game action. Uruguay, which hosted the first cup in 1930, was the first nation to suggest a 64-team expansion on March 6.

The expansion would likely allow all ten CONMEBOL members to make the tournament, including Venezuela, which has never qualified for the World Cup.

“We are convinced that the centennial celebration will be unique because 100 years are celebrated only once. That is why we are proposing, for the first time, to hold this anniversary with 64 teams on three continents simultaneously,” Domínguez said in a speech to his members. “This will allow all countries to have the opportunity to live the world experience, and so nobody on the planet is left out of the party.”

Who is against the expansion and why?

A bigger party was considered when the World Cup expanded from 32 to 48 teams for the upcoming 2026 event, which will be held in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But not everyone is on the expansion bandwagon. On April 3, UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin was blunt in his assessment.

“This proposal was maybe more surprising for me than for you,” Čeferin said. “I think it’s a bad idea. I think it’s not a good idea for the World Cup itself, and it’s not a good idea for our qualifiers as well, you know? So, I’m not supporting that idea. I don’t know where it came from.”

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Čeferin alluded to the drawbacks that FIFA will debate, mainly the watering down of the competition and qualifying criteria. Significant travel and logistical challenges will also be a consideration. Having many more teams in a 128-game format means more venues and infrastructure.

Money could be the determining factor. Adding 16 more teams appears to have support from FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who typically sees more competition and more venues as a way to raise money and grow the game.