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?

@Emobot7 there will be 2 games between each team in group stage? r u serious or just kidding?

No 2 games overall. That means 1 game per group with the other team waiting for day 2, kind of unfair but lets see what happens...

@quikzyy iran has been number 1 in asia for 5consecutive years ;)

Terrible idea!!!

worst idea ever! Gready fuckers.

@Emobot7 I really hope that most of us are proven wrong but i am pessimistic for the following reasons

• pitch quality (was a problem at the expanded euro 2016)
• player fitness
• injuries
• Boring games between lower ranked countries
• anti-football/bus parking -
• Less goals
  some benefits would be that there are more games to watch (quality will not be the same)
  This also means more inclusion and more development form fifa grants and tv rights

Fifa was aware that adding more teams would increase the potential for teams settling for a draw - which is why they organized the group stage into 16 groups of three with 2 games each - Mourinho says" i prefer groups of three, two game and your into a knockout, this way the two group matches will be curcial""

On the other hand teams could be even more likely too park the bus and try to get to penalties, because of how crucial the games are. Of course all the teams will play with passion, you can defend with passion

Fifa is thinking of requiring all games in group stage to have positive result - no ties./ pemalties

This changing the tournament begging the question why change it, maybe instead there should be the equivalent of a europa league to the world cup :P

@kyokar Sorry, I got something wrong. Only 2 game by team in the group stage, that what its said. Sorry for being confusing guys.

Totally agree with @Golefty, we can prepare for the lowest goals per game ever scored. I'm not even surprised that Mourinho backs up this. Everyone else from Chelsea, City, Liverpool are against this idea.

@quikzyyy Ok then, we will talk of it again in 2026 when there will be more than 300 goals scored at that world cup. :P

@ emo that would imply 2.5 goals scored every game :P - likely?

Imagine a group ending in all matches 0-0.

1. xxx 0-2-0 0:0 2 points
2. yyy 0-2-0 0:0 2 points
3. zzz 0-2-0 0:0 2 points

@Golefty Then lets say 160 goal then. It mean 2 goal a game, seem more realist, doesn't it?

@quikzyyy Then what, they get trough on number of less Yellow and Red card? That would be hillarious. XD

@emo it's already the case, red and yellows would be counted and in case they have same red/yellows it's a coin flip after the game.

They were actually considering getting rid of ties by having ET and penalties with every tie in the WC. It just keeps getting worst. The WC is perfect just as it is. This will take way longer than the month it currently takes, moving all other club comp. and f***** the schedules for that year.. only 32 teams deserve to be in the WC and we already have boring/terrible matches. 48 is just illogical. Can't see how any reasonable person can agree with this.

Quantity instead of quality, because it generates more money to FIFA :/

I think it's not such a bad idea, but as others have mentioned it would be much better to have less groups and more teams in one group. I don't think it will affect the quality very much. Every team who reaches there will reach on their own merit, and it's not as if in the current format we don't see low-quality games. You can't possibly predict that the lesser known teams who reach the World Cup won't cause an upset or two.

(Remember Costa Rica in 2014? Iceland in the Euros this year?)

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.

Yes, I agree, they're players aren't to the level of champions.

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

They would come 11th.

Possibly.