FIFA to consider 64-team showpiece

PARIS – Soccer’s governing body FIFA will review a proposal to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams to mark the centenary of the sport’s marquee event, it said on Thursday.

The 2030 World Cup will be held in Morocco, Spain and Portugal, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, where the inaugural edition was staged, set to host three games.

The World Cup has already been expanded from 32 to 48 teams for next year’s edition in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

“A proposal to analyse a 64-team FIFA World Cup to celebrate the centenary of the FIFA World Cup in 2030 was spontaneously raised by a FIFA Council member in the ‘miscellaneous’ agenda item near the end of the FIFA Council meeting held on March 5 2025,” a FIFA spokesperson told Reuters.

“The idea was acknowledged as FIFA has a duty to analyse any proposal from one of its Council members.”

Earlier on Thursday, the New York Times said the proposal was made by Ignacio Alonso, a delegate from Uruguay.

The newspaper, which did not name its sources, said the proposal was met with ‘stunned silence’ by the participants.

It added that according to three people in the meeting, “FIFA was likely to be guided by financial and political benefits as much as sporting ones when it came to taking a decision on the matter.

“(FIFA president) Mr Infantino … described the proposal as an interesting one that should be analysed more closely,” the New York Times added, according to “four people with direct knowledge of the discussions.”

(Reuters)