Rumors have long circulated that the 2030 World Cup final round will be further expanded to 64 teams.
On September 24th, Beijing time, "The Athletic" reported the latest news. On Tuesday, FIFA once again discussed the proposal of expanding its army to 64 teams in 2030. Participants included FIFA President infantino, Secretary-General Grafstrom, and many people from Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay. The discussion on the proposal of military expansion in the 2030 World Cup was chaired by Dominguez, president of South American Football Association and vice president of FIFA, as the representative of the proposer.
According to the media, a number of meetings on the preparations for the 2030 World Cup will be held at FIFA headquarters in new york this week, and military expansion will be the main topic.
The 2030 World Cup will be the largest ever and will be held across three continents and six countries: hosted by Portugal, a member of the FIFA, Spain and Morocco, a member of the FIFA, while the first three will be hosted by Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.In addition to the proposed expansion, Domingos also suggested that the 2030 World Cup group should divide Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay into three different groups.
As early as March this year, Uruguay’s President, Ignacio Alonso, first proposed the World Cup to be expanded to 64 teams at the FIFA Council meeting. A month later, Domingos said at the FIFA Congress that he had submitted the plan to FIFA, saying that the idea of playing with 64 teams would be the best memorial to the first World Cup held in Uruguay in 1930. It is not yet clear whether the Expansion Army 64 will be the special example of 2030 or the future World Cup.
The three major football leagues in Europe, Asia, Central and North America and the Caribbean have clearly expressed their opposition to the South American plan to expand to 64 teams.
The World Cup has experienced several expansions in recent decades, from 16 teams to 24 teams in 1982 and 32 teams in 1998. Next summer, there will be an unprecedented 48 teams participating in the World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico. At present, FIFA has a total of 211 member associations. If the World Cup is expanded to 64 teams, it means that more than 30% of the representatives of member associations will participate in the World Cup.
According to FIFA's charter, any decision to expand the scale of the tournament needs to be discussed and approved by the FIFA Council.