Regardless of the criticism, Zurich’s number one is ready to further expand the World Cup, making it a sort of maxi tournament open to (almost) everyone. And it is not certain that Europe will benefit from it…
The North American World Cup was considered an absolute success, despite criticism for its gigantism and a long first phase in which practically nothing was up for grabs. Gianni Infantino does not give up and, on the contrary, relaunches, confirming how FIFA is studying a new, further expanded format of the World Cup starting from the next edition in 2030.
The idea is that we can go from the current 48 teams (104 games) to 64, effectively doubling the 32 participants that were the rule until the 2022 edition in Qatar over the course of two cycles.. A move with which Infantino aims to make the World Cup such a broad and universal tournament that it almost resembles an Olympics dedicated to football, with clear benefits on the revenues arriving in Zurich.
“Certainly the 64-team tournament is an issue that will be examined and discussed in the competent committees after this World Cup – explained the FIFA president -. The criticism for the qualification criteria being too narrow for Europe? The World Cup is for the whole world, not just for Europe and South America. Every nation should be able to dream of participating in the World Cup. You can see that the quality of the teams is extremely high, and is increasing more and more all over the world. If the smaller countries are not given the chance to participate in the World Cup, they will lack the incentive to continue to improve.”
The 2030 edition will already have the specificity of being played on three continents, having matches in South America to celebrate the centenary of the competition and then developing between Spain, Portugal and Morocco. A ploy through which Infantino guaranteed himself the possibility of assigning the 2034 edition to Saudi Arabia, shortening the waiting times of the Asian continent to just twelve years after the edition hosted by Qatar.
FIFA began the process of examining the possibility of expanding the World Cup more than a year ago. In the mind of its president, what is coming to an end was a fully successful tournament, without weak points and which guaranteed world football a step forward. Many insiders, coaches and former players think differently but Infantino is ready for a relaunch.
The move may not necessarily allow Europe to significantly increase its slotssomething that the results of the North American tournament also proved necessary: 6 of the 8 qualified for the quarter-finals are from the federations registered with UEFA. FIFA’s policy in the last decade has, in fact, tended to give space to the smaller continents to the detriment of the cradle of world football.
