After the success of the first-ever 48-team World Cup this summer, FIFA will examine yet another expansion to its quadrennial tournament.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino told Swiss media outlet Bluewin that the potential for a 64-team tournament in 2030 “will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees after this World Cup,” according to a report in The Athletic. The 2030 World Cup is slated to be held across six nations and three continents, with Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay scheduled to host one match a piece at the start of the competition to commemorate the inaugural World Cup, hosted 100 years prior in Uruguay. The remainder of the planned 48-team tournament would take place in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.
However, an expansion to 64 teams could chance that calculus, potentially allowing Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay to each host an entire group for the tournament, rather than just a single match.
“Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup,” Infantino said. “You can see that the quality of the teams is extremely high—and it’s getting higher and higher, all over the world.”
The FIFA president added: “If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving.”
It’s unclear whether the World Cup would permanently expand to 64 teams, or if FIFA would choose to expand the tournament just once to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup. A 64-team format would make for a neater group stage in which the top two finishers in 16 groups advance to the Round of 32. One criticism of this year’s 48-team format was that an entire group stage was played just to eliminate 16 teams, with the top eight third-place finishers advanced to the knockout rounds. A 64-team field would mark a return to how the World Cup group stage typically operated, just with more groups.
Assuming FIFA were to pick this format (16 groups of four teams with the top two finishers advancing from each), the World Cup would expand from 104 games under the 48-team field, to 128 games in a 64-team field. In other words, FIFA would be creating 24 games of additional inventory to sell to broadcast partners across the globe.
As most already know, FIFA will be going to market shortly after this World Cup ends with U.S. broadcast rights for the 2030 and 2034 tournaments. While FIFA have not yet formally approached media companies for bids, there are a laundry list of broadcast networks and streamers that will be interested in securing rights. Incumbents Fox (English) and Telemundo (Spanish) will certainly look to retain rights, though Telemundo parent NBCUniversal reportedly isn’t interested if the price per tournament approaches $2 billion. Netflix, YouTube, Apple, and Disney have all also been listed as interested suitors. FIFA, for its part, could also choose to sell English-language and Spanish-language rights together, should a company put in a compelling enough offer.
The expanded format, however, could pave the way for FIFA to split World Cup rights among multiple partners. With robust interest from both streamers and linear networks, and the likelihood that television consumption will still be substantially fragmented between those two distribution methods come 2030, FIFA may be wise to split its inventory among multiple partners that together can offer a mixed approach.
Added inventory from a 64-team format helps that cause. Prospective partners could be more amenable to sharing a larger tournament, since even a 50-50 split would grant them rights to 64 games each. For reference, the old 32-team format featured just 64 games in its entirety.
Prior reports suggest that media companies are expecting FIFA to command between $1.5 billion and $2 billion for the 2030 tournament. That’s more than triple the price Fox is paying for this year’s World Cup ($485 million), though that price is not at all indicative of the true market rate this World Cup would’ve garnered in a competitive bidding process.
Whether that $1.5 billion to $2 billion range is what media companies are genuinely expecting, or it’s simply a range FIFA would like to get out there in public, one thing is certain: adding 16 more teams and 24 more games to the tournament will definitely sweeten the pot for prospective media partners.
How likely it is that FIFA shift to 64 teams in 2030 is another question entirely. Two confederations, CONCACAF and UEFA, have already laid out full qualifying schedules for the next World Cup cycle, and those schedules are predicated on a 48-team field. 2030 World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF begins in September 2027, meaning any expansion decisions by FIFA would likely need to be made in relatively short order.
Of course, FIFA will need to know exactly what it’s selling anyway before approaching potential broadcast partners to submit bids. And if reports of FIFA’s plans to strike while the iron is hot after a successful 2026 World Cup are true, it’ll want to make a decision on 64 vs. 48 before long.
