Today, Reuters reported that that FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, is considering expanding the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams for its centenary tournament, which is being split between six nations in South America, North Africa, and the Iberian Peninusula.
The World Cup had been a small competition for years; as late as 1978, the tournament only had 16 participants. And in the latest World Cup, the tournament had 32 teams.
The acceleration of the size of the World Cup, to be frank, is an excuse to bring in a lot of nations which are very rich petro-authoritarian states such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Venezuela, and perhaps even Russia if they are ever allowed back into FIFA’s good graces.
Think of it: being in a World Cup used to be an achievement. You had to win your qualification group or at least place high in a months-long competition in order to be one of the best 16. If this proposal goes through, you’re going to see a lot of these competitions become nearly meaningless.
Let’s take our hemisphere. In CONCACAF, you’re likely to have the United States, Canada, and Mexico absolutely dead-stick guaranteed to make every World Cup instead of having to fight through the Hexagonal final round having to play tough home games at The Office, San Pedro Sula, the Azteca, and Saprissa. Instead, I’d venture that you’re going to have somewhere around six or seven teams making a 64-team World Cup.
In South America, every one of CONMEBOL’s teams makes the final bracket (reminder: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana are part of North America’s confederation). As of now, six teams qualify for the 48-team World Cup with a seventh going to a playoff. But if you go to a 64-team World Cup, you could have up to nine teams qualifying, meaning that CONMEBOL would be playing for nearly three years to eliminate one team.
Given the small number of countries that have ever won a FIFA men’s World Cup (eight), expanding the Cup, for me, is a cynical and foolhardy exercise. Then again, the lords of soccer done a lot of outrageous things in the last few years in their fiefdom. It’s nothing new.