FIFA Council have unanimously approved a World Cup of 48 teams

The tournament currently has 32 sides in eight groups of four. The plans overseen by president Gianni Infantino mean the tournament will now begin with 16 groups of three teams, with the top two advancing into a 32 team knock-out stage.

There will be a total of 80 games under the new format. Currently, in the 32-team schedule, 64 matches are played overall.

European places at the competition will likely rise from 13 to 16. Africa and Asia could have as many as nine teams each. At the 2014 World Cup in Brazil they had five and four teams respectively. FIFA could decide by May how many entries each continent has.

Extra teams also means increased revenue for FIFA. Their research suggests that an expanded tournament would rake in an additional £521million profit on the current format.

Thoughts?

was excited first but than i realised it was in 2026. let's hope it comes quickly...

No issues with it. Yes, the quality will go down a bit in the group stages, but it will also give inspiration to nations that otherwise never would have had it, and Cinderella stories will be everywhere.

Sounds good to me.

honestly, this is stupid. They should of made it less. 10 teams. There's only handful of teams that could actually win lol

I agree with Gonzi this time.

I agree, I also don't like this idea. I liked the expansion of the euros, but not this.....

@quik

Haha, no.

From 1994 World Cup attendance stats (when literally no one in the US cared about soccer, MLS didn't even exist then due to lack of interest).

Attendance 3,587,538 (68,991 per match)

Infantino securing his presidency by giving random countries dirty fifa money . There were already enough problems at the euros , expect this competion to be boring , Canada might even qualify

if they combine north and south america - for 14 slots. the 10 south american teams will qualify along with usa, mexico, costa rica and panama. This sounds interesting

top 5 teams from south america qualify every 4 years. And I am sure that the 6th, 7th and 8th place teams....usually colombia, venezuala, paraguay can destroy some top euro teams. If someone watches south american qualifiers we all know they are the hardest qualifiers. We all know how hard it is to beat Peru. I full on believe Peru can destroy England. no joke.

Would be interesting to see. Knock some useless overrated euro teams off their pedestal.

Would be interesting to see. Knock some useless overrated euro teams off their pedestal.

Not 'overrated'. Some aren't the greatest, but then again, they cause challenges. In 2010, Serbia beat Germany 1 0, and still finished bottom, and Germany finished top.

It's not about US or any other organisation country, when I watch World Cup I don't want to watch Burkina Faso.

@amir_keal Obviously some teams in europe are world class. But England isn't...they're shite...honestly...i'm being serious. Every 4 years, the media attention on England is so funny. "England to win WC", "England to Challenge", "Rooney says he's ready. The whole of england stops for a month.

Meanwhile the real champs are making history, winning, reaching finals.

@ gonzi , i agree it would be more compettive considering all of the south american teams that usually dont make it through qualification

in 10 team south america. If England were to play our qualifiers.

They would come 11th.

Terrible idea. The quality will down the drain. sigh :(

The quality will go down the drain. Records like Ronaldo's 15 and Fontaine's 13 and Klose's 16 will be hammered in no time. Players like Ronaldo and Messi will be criticized even more for being unable to score more often in the World Cup. It's just nonsensical to me. The format was fine as it is.

Thats minimizing group stage just like in the euro, why having a group of 3 and only one eliminated ? Once you win your first game you are granted to pass group stage. I'm not against having more teams but I don't like the format.
I would have preferred groups of 6 teams with the guarantee for small teams to play at least 5 games instead of 2 with this format. And give more competition getting qualifying a little harder.
First And second to qualify, firs and second + best third, first+second+third to qualify, or even 123 and best fourth... depending on the level of dificulty they want.
BUT not a group of 3, that's a joke of group imo.

Seems like China knew it beforehand or has control over Fifa... lol... Their dream would come true very soon...

What is the whole purpose of having a team go through all the qualifiers and all the trouble to get to the WC to play only a couple of games. 3 was already a small amount of games per team. The part Im more concerned about is that qualifying to the WC was actually a challenge for a bunch of countries and with this it will become a simple task. In the end I totally hate this. We already see terrible teams in the WC what is the point of having more teams?

Worst idea ever!

I really like the idea but I agree with Tuanis, we need bigger group! More game in the group stage (Oh wait, there is actually two game between each team, so, it mean 6 game in the group stage, that actually not worse than what we had before). People worrying about the quality of the games, don't be though, its the world cup, every team who make it there will play with all the passion they can and even if its unbalanced in the first turn, that only more goal for us viewer and more buildup for the unfolding drama! This a great idea! :D

@Golefty Would it be so bad? :(