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

The top seeded teams in that 6-nation playoff will be from Conmebol and Concacaf.

It will be like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

It's the old Euro qualification basically

 

Rather than do this stupid 3 team groups with two advancing, which will lend to more parking the bus, They need to just bite the bullet and go to 12 four team groups, with 2 teams advancing from each group. and the best 8 group winners receiving a bye into the round of 16, with the 4 worst group winners and all 12 second placers playing in a preliminary knockout round.

Before you say this would be too many games, this would be 96 games, which is only 16 more than the proposed system.

Before you say that would be too many games per team, it would be thesame amount of games teams play currently, unless you happen to make the final as a team that played in the preliminary round. AT MOST, only two teams could find themselves in this situation, and most world cups, neither team would have played the extra game as the finals participants tend to score many points in the group stage.

As for why this would be a good idea... firstly, it would get rid of the ridiculous three team groups.

Secondly, and more importantly, it would put a huge onus on winning your group with as many points as possible, something we have never seen before, and this would make group play far more interesting... particularily on matchday 3. Just think about this year, when England and Belgium pretty much wanted to lose their match... That would not be the case under this system, as the group winner would have received a bye, and both teams would have went after it with first team lineups. This would also make draws less desireable for the top teams, as overall points would matter in determining the top 8 teams from the 12 group winners.

 

Agree with all of that. 2026 is pretty much a lost cause but I hope after that disaster FIFA realizes their mistake and shifts to a 12-groups-of-4 format.

 

I like this idea.

 

Seems like a very good idea and proposal. Much better than what I understand will be the format for 2026.

 

8 group winners get rest, after dismembering teams like SYR/CAN during group phase.
While 4 group winners will play an additional round.

By R16, half of contenders would have played 90(120+penalties) additional minutes, and would have had less rest days.

A rather unfair playing field during R16, in my opinion.

 

With groups of 3 you have the same issue heading into the R32, as some teams will be playing on ~8 days rest and other ~4 days. At least with the 12 groups format teams earned that extra rest.

Other factors:
- Its a 48-team WC so the opposition will be notably weaker during the group stage, so in some cases teams will be able to do more player rotation I think.
- in club football, teams play each other all the time with unequal rest periods leading up to games. Its not even talked about all that much.

 

Man, I think the rest factor was one of the most commented topics after recent WC quarterfinals.

Not sure if dismembering minnows at the group stage should be rewarded with a direct ticket to R16.
Just don't sound right.

 

If you're concerned about matches against rubbish sides being given too much importance, you can always just throw out the results against the 4th-placed teams when ranking the group winners. This should mostly alleviate the issue of a Saudi Arabia 2002/North Korea 2010-type side stinking it up and providing the winner of their group an unfair advantage, as a side this bad will generally finish at the bottom of their group.

 

Yeah I noticed that. It was a lot of rubbish talk though and it didn’t seem to hurt Croatia against England.

But its almost never mentioned in club football.

Well there will be at least 2 strong teams in each group so I see it the other way: finishing ahead of another strong team should give you access to the R16.

 

That would work.

Although, I do not see FIFA doing such a bad PR move during the WC. FIFA would never hear the end of it for bottom squads like Germany 2018 or England 2014.

 

I guess it would be unpopular anyways.

Teams playing different amount of WC matches and all that.

 

How about having 16 groups of 3 teams each, where the best 2 advance to the next stage, with a little "fix" to always keep in mind, for the next stage.

the 2 teams qualified from each group, take with them the result of the match between them to the next stage (the match against the eliminated team from the group, gets discarded), where they will face and play against the 2 teams that qualified from another 1st stage group, against whom they get to win points and goal diferentiates, that will add to the points and goal diferentiate they had in their first stage group match, that they got against the other qualified team from the group (at this point all matches from the 1st stage will become equally important), where at the end, from the 4 teams of this second stage (coming out of 2 groups), only one of them goes directly to quarters.

All teams, at this second stage would have had played the same amount of matches, as in previous WC's (4 matches before quarters, and all we do is add 16 matches to the whole calendar so FIFA gets to keep their foolish 3 team 1st stage group format).

16 teams will get only 2 WC matches each, all eliminated after the first stage, which will be afterwards joined by 24 other teams, the next stage, whom will get 2 extra matches. With only 8 teams going for the final 8 matches of the WC, in direct knock-out matches.

All finalists would have played at most, the same amount of matches as in previous WC's, which is 7, including among them the final match of the WC.

 

Like it alot!!!

 

Looks good as far as the number of matches played by each team thanks to your "carry-over" suggestion.

But we will then be going from 2-teams-advancing-out-of-groups-of-3 to having 8 groups of 4 teams each with only the winners of each group advancing to the next round (quarterfinals).
Something about that doesn't sit right with me.

And we then could end up with this scenario...

1st Round
Group 1: Team A defeats Team B 1-0 which is carried over to the next round (Team C is eliminated)
Group 2: Team A and Team B play to a 0-0 draw which is carried over to the next round (Team C is eliminated)
These four teams are then grouped together in the second round.

2nd Round
Team 1A defeats Team 2A by 1-0
Team 1B and Team 2B draw 1-1

Standings after four results:
Team 1A = 6 points
Team 2B = 2 points
Team 2A = 1 point
Team 1B = 1 point

Team 1A is already through to the quarterfinals which renders the two remaining matches in the group as dead rubbers.
And if this were to happen in more than one group... I don't think the tournament organizers will be too thrilled with that, let alone fans who had long ago bought tickets to those matches.

 

Where you fail to consider in the scenario you're posting is that 8 groups of 4 teams makes up to only 32 teams, when for the WC we are talking about will suposedly have 48 teams, which means that if you want groups of 4 teams each, you actually would have 12 groups of 4 teams each, and have 12 group winners (not 8). At that point you wouldn't have 8 teams playing quarters, but 12 teams playing instead, in which case you could play as they did back in the 1982 WC, which is to have a stage of 4 groups of 3 teams each, to define the semifinalists, in which case there would almost be a complete certainty about the existence of some "dead rubber" matches going for the last match, in some of the groups for the last match date

Come with a suggestion where all teams at this stage play the same amount of matches going to the final match, without having any team to play more matches than those they currently do need to play to win a WC, which is 7 matches from the begining to the end. Moment some teams need to play 8 matches, while others stick to 7 matches, it becomes unfair to those that would need to play an "extra" match, to reach the same stage as some of their opponents.
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What I suggested as a possibility., of course is not perfect, but simply sorts out a possible format, attempting to being equally fair to everyone the same. Most perfect scenario, would be to not expand to 48 teams teams and leave things exactly as how they are now, with no changes with only 32 teams, avoiding the monstruosity of having 3 team groups, FIFA pretends to use.

The other possibility is to have a complete knock-out format from start to the end, but instead of expanding from 32 to 48, FIFA would need to go further and expand the WC to 64 teams instead, so each finalist plays the required 7 matches each, to win the WC. The worst part in this format, is that half of the teams (32 teams) will restrict their whole WC participation to only one match, and if you happen to be from a "weak" Confed, most likely your team will be facing a top team from either Uefa or Conmebol for that sole WC match, as well. It's not hard to imagine all the whining that sort of scenario would generate.

One way or the other, it is almost impossible to not have any "dead rubber" matches for any type of format WC. Even now, with 32 teams in 8 groups of 4, you still get to have some of those (e.g. the Poland-Japan match, or the Belgium- England match, both in the 2018 WC, where none of the teams that actually made it to the next stage, even tried to win their matches). And the scenario, where almost everything gets decided after only 2 match dates, is also a reality that has always existed, and happens from time to time at the WC (e.g. groups A and G, in the 2018 WC, where going to the last match date at group stage, the 2 eliminated teams from those groups were playing each other, knowing in advance that whomever was going to win, was equally still flying home after playing that match). May not be a desirable scenario, but still happens and will continue happening in the future as well.

And btw, fans who may have bought those tickets for "dead rubber" matches, with long time in advance, really only know that they are going to be "dead rubber" matches, the moment the WC gets played, as no one has the full certainty as how the WC will evolve from the start..

 

Conembol maybe but certainly not concacaf.

Is Concacafs #7 really better than CAF's #10 ? I dont think so.

Currently Concacaf #7 is El Salvador which is ranked #72

CAF's #10 is is Mali which is ranked #64

I would take Mali over El Salvador any day of the week.

Under the current rankings the tournament would look like this

Paragauay #32 Bye
Mali #62 Bye

El Salvador #72
Lebanon #79
Canada #79 or Curacao #82 (depending on whether Canada qualifies automatically)
Solomon Islands #143

So the tournament would look something like this

El Salvador vs Solomon Islands = El Salvador
Lebanon v Canada/Curacao (I'm gonna say Canada qualifies automatically so its Curacao) = Lebanon

Final round

Paragauay beats Lebanon

Mali beats El Salvador

 

I disagree.

El Salvador has lots more experience facing teams, from Confeds diferent to their own, playing many times against top teams of the world, from Uefa and Conmebol (most of the times they lose them, although they do have a few wins against them).

For the case of Mali, they have almost never faced any team from Uefa or Conmebol (only once played vs. Croatia, where they lost), and their whole international experience against teams from diferent confeds to their own, is restricted to a very few amount of matches against a few asian teams (some of which are even low tiered in Asia), with a few wins, but mostly draws and defeats.
To most extent, their ranking is based on what they achieve playing against other african teams.


Besides, may not be much, but El Salvador has made it twice in the past, to the WC, both times based on their own merit, leaving lots stronger teams from their Confed, behind.

In my case (personal opinion), my bet goes with El Salvador.....

 

I don't see that as an issue. Cup tournaments are inherently unfair. And in any case I don't see this as unfair as every team has a chance to earn a bye and play one less match than some others.

 

I'm talking about your suggested Second Round which will have 8 groups of 4 teams.
And you only have one winner advancing from those four groups to the quarterfinals.
Correct?

 

Playing teams from other confederations does not automatically make you stronger.

Actually Mali's last inter confederational match was a 1-1 draw with Japan.

Mali has done better in African nations cups than El Salvador has done in a much weaker Gold cup. Mali has twice in a row come third in 2012 and 2013. El Salvador has made no such progress in a Gold Cup. Plus if you look at the squads, Mali just has much more talented players.

I dont see any metric which would lead me to think El Salvador would beat Mali.

 

Totally agree. That's one of the many reasons why I'm against the expansion to 48 teams.

 

Yes,
I also noticed, afterwards (couldn't edit) I had initially read wrong, your OP.

In any case it's one winner going through to the quarters from every 2 initial 3 team groups (as there are 16 groups of 3 teams, only 8 teams get to go through to quarters, or in other words, from among every 6 teams, only one of them goes through to quarters). No room, for whomever comes in second place.

 

In this aspect, we agree completely.

Since day 1, I've been against the expanssion to 48 teams.

Unfortunately, nothing we could want now, will change the fact that the expanssion to 48 will happen, as at FIFA they have already decided to go for it.