World Cup Expansion to 48 Teams (Update: FIFA Council Agrees 2026 Slot Allocation)

Guys ur forgetting that one day it will be an interplanetary World Cup!!!!

A1: Earth vs Siris 54
A2: Titan 6 vs Mars
....

 

I would like 40 teams.
10 groups, 2 advance from each group.
And we have 2 knockout stage so there is 5 teams left.
And all 5 teams meet each other, and the winner of the serie will be champion.

Two more matches. mm.

 

I can already hear the outcry when Asteroid 243 Ida wins the right to host the tournament.

 

Seems like a bit of a weird format, but when the expansion rumours first started I also thought 40 teams made more sense than 48. Enough to keep the 'weaker' confederations happy with more spots (politics-side) yet still maintains a decent amount of competitiveness (sporting-side).

Seemed like a good compromise, but hey, 48 == even more money so ...

 

nah, group of 5 is silly. might end up with the team who has a day off on the last matchday being the champion.

 

Although that's more likely to happen when you have groups of 3. 40 > 48.

 

Will the sun host in summer or winter?

 

Hi guys, seems like this thread is in deep sleep, but I was just mulling over this recently and this seemed like the appropriate place to put this. I was trying to think of a format for a 48-team World Cup that didn't require 3-team groups at any stage, but also didn't add too many more matches. Here is my proposal:

12 groups of 4. No Round of 32 like in the current proposal. Instead, we go straight to the Round of 16. 12 group winners and 4 best runners-up advance to R16. If parity between groups is a concern, perhaps the results against the 4th-place finishers in each of the groups can be discarded when ranking the runners-up.

This gives us a total of 88 matches, which is only 8 more than the format currently proposed, so it's not a huge jump. The maximum number of matches any team would play would still be 7, so that doesn't change either.

Alternately (I think I like this idea better), if you don't like the idea of eliminating so many group runners-up outright, you could have a play-in round before R16 involving the top 8 runners-up for those final 4 spots. This way, only 4 runners-up would be eliminated outright. Something like this:

best runners-up vs 8th best
2 vs 7
3 vs 6
4 vs 5

This would get us to 92 matches, and it's technically possible that a team could play up to 8 matches, though I imagine this would be relatively infrequent.

Any thoughts? Do you think either of the formats I proposed could fly?

 

I prefer 12 groups of 4 because it leads to more competitive matches in the group stage, but I wouldn’t want to eliminate any group runners-up (since in practice the groups won’t be very well balanced, so its just terribly unfair to eliminate the second place finisher behind Brazil, for e.g.).

I’d rather see the 8 best group winners advance to the R16, with the other 4 group winners and 12 second place teams having a playoff to determine the other 8 representatives in the R16.

That could mean that a team or two plays 8 games, but meh...

 

On second glance, your idea is better. Gives the favorites an incentive to go out and try to get all 9 points, too, so they can avoid having to go through a play-off.

 

Keep in mind that the key number isn't the overall number of matches, it's the length of the tournament (i.e. the number of games the finalists play).

For the group stage, I'd go with eight 6-team groups....there would have to be five group stage match days, which would mean 15 matches per group, for a total of 120 group stage matches.

But then you could have only the eight group winners advance to the quarterfinals, which would result in only having seven knock-out stage matches. The two finalists would have to play eight matches, instead of seven, but because there would almost certainly be one or two minnows in each group, players could be rested during the group stage. And there would still only have to be eight match days per team, just like the current 48-team proposal.

The big difference would be that there would probably have to be six matches per day on TV during the group stages, as opposed to the current three or four, thus requiring matches to occur concurrently. But with there being more minnows, there are going to be a lot more unattractive group stage matches that nobody is going to want to watch anyway.

 

Too bad it eliminates R16, in order to avoid a 9-match road to the Final.

You would lose 8 high-value games by scrapping R16, while minnows gain 3 group matches... when compared to the actual 16-triad format.

No rest dates in group phase, but the lovely R16 gets scrapped.

Why is FIFA expanding the WC again?

 

So that 4 or 5 people can get more money. Only a billion fans lose out, so good trade off.

 

My thinking is to try to minimize the number of knockout stage matches, because those are the games where randomness (i.e. bad reffing decisions, matches being decided by PK's) has the biggest impact.

Or to put it another way, making the quarterfinals by winning a six-team group is a lot less subject to randomness than possibly finishing second in four-team group and winning a knockout stage match on PK's or through a bad reffing decision. It is much more likely that the eight quarter-finalists will all be among the top 10-15 teams in the world.

Also, having larger groups tends to balance team quality out over the course of a draw, making Groups of Death/Life much less likely.

 

This.

This is the reason you lost the argument.

If you honestly think that this is the calculus that went into this decision then I seriously pity you.

If you really think that this is driven by a tiny group of people you are deluding yourself, and when you go into argue these types of questions (and I really hope you never do) you will find yourself surprised again and again that you end up on the losing side of the question.

This decision (which, honestly, I don't like) has been chosen because it creates benefits for many, many people - many companies - and creates a lot of money that can be spread around. Tons of fans around the world (particularly in those areas that are less connected with the game - the areas that FIFA want to expand into) can be sold this as a win for them (and, frankly, whether that is true is irrelevant).

Tons of national team administrators can point to this as boosting their chances of qualifying for the World Cup (particularly in Asia, where it opens up the realistic prospect to the next rank of teams below the ones that qualify now, and this is probably true in Africa as well) and hence bid for more money for their federation. The fact that they'll get crushed in the finals is neither here nor there.

The "billion fans lose out" comment is utterly moronic - I mean, what do they lose? Are Italian fans this (northern) summer going to be saying "Oh, I'm really glad there were are 32 teams and we didn't qualify - we might have had to play Burkina Faso if there had been 48 qualifiers". Will all those Chinese fans lament that the qualification was made easy enough for them to get in.

Will the eventual winning nation think any less of the tournament. The last sixteen is going to be pretty much as it has been before - that's when the memories really start for me in these things - even now the group stage is pretty much forgotten apart from the matches my country plays (and even then ...)

I don't think 48 teams is better than 32 - 32 is (to my mind) the best balance between global representation, the qualifiers being hard enough that you have to play "well" to get into the finals even if you are a big regional team (Italy, USA, England recently etc) so they actually matter, and a well structured tournament. 48 is going to be less good.

But that's irrelevant - it's a business. It's there to make money. A lot of money for a lot of people.

The people who drove this decision understand this.

And frankly, that's why they're in boardrooms...
... and you're on a message board.

J

 

I know we are just talking about hypothetical formats. So for the sake of discussion:

I can easily imagine fans from *historic* FAs being angry about scrapping R16: only 8 champs will make it past *group stage*.
Not all top UEFA/Conmebol teams will advance, and their fans will be angry to be forced out along with minnows.

There is the money prize allocation, too. R16 prizes will be either: scrapped, moved down to group phase, or moved up to R8/R4/etc.
Some FAs will not like sharing large money prizes with minnows, too.

R16 is the main objective for fan bragging rights. Take it away, and the moaning shall commence.

I like this format's compactness and even-numbered groups. Too bad it sacrifices R16.

 

As gifted jazz musician R. Burgundy would say: Boy, that escalated quickly!

 

My thinking is more sinister.

I bet that FIFA wanted to move public attention away from its corruption scandals.
Hence, it quickly gave us: improvised VAR + a 16-triad World Cup.

FIFA: "there you go kids, have fun with your new toys."
fan: "But FIFA, what about your executives, which continue under investigation? Like that OFC fella, who resigned on April 2018."
FIFA: "now now, don't make me bring Platini in, with his rainbow card set for referees. I swear on Blatter's soul, I will do it!"

 

Personally, I prefer the format proposed by BocaFan (12 groups of 4; top 8 group winners + 8 playoff winners advance to the R16).

If you think it's important to reduce the number of knockout matches, however, I think I have a better idea. Your proposal involves 6-team groups with only a single team advancing from each group. The problem I see with this is that there will probably be a lot of matches that are dead rubbers/glorified friendlies. Even if teams aren't mathematically eliminated early, having only a single team advance will in many cases mean that even one loss effectively ends a team's tournament. IMO this format would make the group stage very uninteresting. E.g. let's say I'm a supporter of Switzerland. Switzerland ends up in a group with Germany, Paraguay, Nigeria, Honduras, and China. The Swiss play Germany first and lose predictably, 0-2. How interesting do you think the rest of the group stage is going to be for me? Unless there is a massive upset in one of the other matches, my team is basically playing 4 glorified friendlies. Granted, you could argue Switzerland isn't exactly a team you'd expect to do much, anyway, but, in that case, there is no need for them to be playing 5 matches. IMO having only the group winners advance only makes sense with groups of 4 teams or less. Anything more and you get a group stage full of dead rubbers.

TL;DR: 6-team groups with only the group winners advancing will result in too many meaningless matches and make the group stage uninteresting.

Here's what I'd do if I wanted to reduce knockout matches without also having too many dead rubbers (and also keeping the length of the tournament/the number of matches a team plays the same). 12 groups of 4. As I suggested earlier in this thread, have the 12 group winners and 4 best runners-up (discarding results against 4th-place finishers to account for unbalanced groups) advance. Instead of having a R16, divide the 16 teams into 4 groups of 4. Group winners advance to the semis, followed by the third-place playoff and final, as usual. This gives us 100 matches total, with only three knockout matches (four if you count the third-place playoff as a "knockout" match). The maximum number of matches per team would still be 8. Has the desired effect of reducing the number of knockout matches, without the problem of a drawn-out first round/group stage full of dead rubbers.

 

BocaFan's proposal is also an excellent one. No disagreement there.

 

lol Okay.

Being a sports fan comes with its highs and lows. We appreciate the highs more because of the fact that lows happen. This isn't an Alabama beauty contest where everyone is a winner. If you make qualifying virtually automatic for Italy (and others) then the qualifying process and the success of qualifying is less exciting for them, so no, they don't win out. Did Arsenal fans celebrate when they avoided relegation this season? We don't get excited about things that are inevitable.

So to get back to your example, if the WC had 48 teams right now and Italy barely qualified for the tournament and then lost in the group stage, how is the overall experience fundamentally different for Italians than what happened in reality(?).

Disagree. Group stage is great fun. And even if you disagree, we have a nice balance of 2 weeks of group stage followed by 2 weeks knockout stages now (roughly). And the group stage is competitive and a challenge for every team, which is why we watch.

 

The Ron Burgundy quote above is fair (actually, it's great)

Hypothetical. If Italy were in the finals then EVERY Italian fan would be expecting to get through the group phase. Every true Italian fan would be expecting to win the whole thing. Forget qualifying - for the finals everything is set back to 0 points. Nothing before counts for anything.

I am an Australian fan - I hope, I might even believe Australia can get through its group next month - I can see it, taste it. The experts might tell me the chances are 1 in 3 (frankly that sounds generous) - but I have faith. I saw 2006 in person - I know we can do it. I know we will do it.

Hell, I'm sure last time some insane Costa Rican fans saw their group for 2014 and thought "you know, I think we might be able to surprise Uruguay in the first game, freak a result against Italy, and be through after two games - then we might even get through the Round of 16". Sure, it's utterly insane and would never happen - but fans are able to convince themselves it's possible.

I agree about the "niceness" of the group stage - I noted that I believe that 32 teams is ideal and the 48 thing is dumb - but that's not relevant to the point about whether the "4-5 people benefit and 1 billion lose out" isn't an unhelpful, and frankly self-defeating, delusion.

As a (slightly) tangential point, I would also note the following. Before the last Euro a couple of intelligent posters noted that, effectively, the group stage in the Euros would be pointless and that the competition would really begin when we got to 16 teams.

I thought that was true.

But, we - the people - make the tournament relevant. WE decide that things are important - not because they really are, but because we say they are. An Icelandic commentator losing his nut over a last minute goal made the group stage relevant because we decided to make it important. If that happened in a qualifier, we probably would have ignored it. We decided Gabor Kiraly wearing daggy tracky-dacks (look up Aussie lingo if you are confused) was a suddenly cool thing.

In a 48 team tournament - WE WILL MAKE MATCHES RELEVANT. We will watch Burkina Faso pip Uzbekistan in the 95th minute to advance as 2nd place in their group and some Uzbek kid will be crying in the stands and suddenly that will be the most important thing in the world. In the end, it's a game and it is not really important - not like war or famine, or your mum's dementia or the ever-increasing fear of your own mortality. But for 90 minutes we will put that aside and some utterly lame event on a field in Morocco (you know that's gonna happen) will be the most important thing in the world.

J

 

The cream always rises to the top. Will some big name teams get upset? Of course, that's the nature of a tournament. Will there be games like Burkina Faso vs Uzbekistan? Yea. Do you have to watch it? No but the likelihood of either of those team making the semi-finals or finals is extremely small.

Stop acting like the World Cup is only for a few elite countries.

 

It's not only for

It's not only for the elite countries - there is a whole process of qualifying that every Fifa country takes part in. That doesn't mean 1 in every 4 should be at the Finals, in many people's opinion.

Expansion from the previous, fairly elitist 16 teams through to 24 and then 32 has changed an elite tournament into a reasonably inclusive one. Going to 48 just opens it up far too widely in my opinion.

But a 32 team tournament is hardly for "the elite few" as you put it. A 48 team tournament is a step too far. There has to be an element of elitism regardless, since the object of the exercise is to crown the best national team in the world.