Apparently Infantino is now looking at 64 teams for 2030? Is this FIFA or March Madness?
I, like many people, was perplexed about the jump to 48, but about a year ago was convinced it is the right amount currently.
48 keeps it in line with most previous editions. There are 211 nations in the FIFA rankings, meaning just under a quarter of nations qualified (22.5%). Around the 20% mark is where most expansions have aimed to keep this number at. In 1998, when it went from 24 to 32, there were 174 nations qualifying, so around 18% of entrants qualified. In 2022, the last of the 32 nation cups with 206 qualifiers, that number was down to 15.5%. In 1982 when it went from 16 to 24 from 109 qualifiers again it was 22%
There are a few candidate nations such as the Marshall Islands which are aiming for full FIFA membership (and I guess Bougainville once it gets on with declaring the independence it voted for), but not enough to make 64 worth it immediately after the jump to 48 when it is still the highest percentage of qualifiers (~30%).
48 teams was already though a big investment for a host country to house, a host country to have enough stadiums and training grounds for and for fans watching at home to keep track of. In the end, most World Cup fans want to watch every game, and it was already a nightmare with the 72 games in the group stages to keep following. The dilution of proper "Groups of Death" was a shame because there really weren't that many surprise results, although the 12 4-team groups were better than 16 groups of 3. In the end, as dumb and complicated and impossible to follow the top 8 3rd placed group qualifiers was, it did in the end give pretty much every team a chance to qualify and therefore something to fight for going into the final day of the season. Each team getting three matches minimum makes it both worth them coming, and also plenty more chances for those players to make a mark. Look at the stories of Curacao and Cape Verde this tournament.
In the end, 64 team World Cups basically removes the chance of single-country World Cups ever being possible again. Basically you're stuck with only going to countries with either an endless money pit ready to build a load of pointless one-time usage training grounds (Saudi, China etc) or a lot of co-host nations with large professional leagues. Even somewhere like France or Germany may struggle to find training grounds from 64 professional football teams for teams to use. Australia/new Zealand would be a great host, but even then they're going to have to take a load of training grounds from Rugby and Aussie Rules teams to fit it in. The UK becomes one of the only countries with enough pre-existing infrastructure to be able to do this kind of hosting duty and even then it's 4 FIFA nations and multiple top flight leagues.
Infantino needs to be stopped. Who would have expected that Russia and Qatar would have hosted better World Cups than America, eh? Canada and Mexico did their best but have been overshadowed by the mess inbetween.
www.bbc.com
