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

concacaf + conmebol have 45 teams together:

14 out of 45 let this qualfier feature a format, that matches european qualifiers. For some of the smaller caribbean nations, the possibility of facing argentina or brazil will boost their football.

that is why i am in favor of this format.

45 teams may result in 7 groups (3 with 7 teams, 4 with 6 teams) and the winner and runners-up will reach the world cup. All teams will have a max of 12 matches, a reasonsable reduction of the round about 18 that world cup finalist of both confederations have today.

 

There can be many formats. For example:

1. The bottom 6 teams of Fifa Ranking play a play off match and three of them join to those 39 teams for final round which consists of 7 groups of 6 teams and the top two teams of each group can advance to the finals of the tournament. In that case, all groups have the same number of teams which is more balanced.

Or

2. The bottom 10 teams of Fifa Ranking play a play off match and the winners join to other 35 teams. Those 40 teams can be divided to 8 groups of 5. The winner of each group advance to the finals. The other 8 teams play a play off match. The winners advance to the finals, and the other 4 teams play another play off match for the last two available slots.

Or

3. 9 groups of 5 teams where the winner and the best second placed team advance to the finals of the WC tournament. The other 8 teams that finishes second can play a play off match and the winners advance to the finals.

Which one do you prefer? Many formats are possible.

 

My Spanish is getting pretty good. I may even take a few trips to SA for qualifiers... especially Brazil... I'll hopefully have started learning Portuguese by then...

 

Which it will be for 25+% of the matches now (in the group stage).

I forget what the reason was for having 16 groups of 3 instead of 12 groups of 4. (?) My main problem with the latter was that it is harsh to send 2nd-place teams home, but if 32 teams advance to the knockout stage that problem goes away.

 

32 teams do (or will) advance to the knockout stage.

In 16 groups of 3 you have first and second place advance to equal the 32 in the knockouts.

In the 12 groups of 4. 8 third place teams would need to advance to equal the 32. And 12 groups of 4 is to many games...

12 groups of 4 (in a 32 team knockout) = 8 total games to the final

16 groups of 3 (32 team knockout) = 7 total games to the final

 

Either way the tournament is 8 matchdays long.

To have 3-team groups and all the problems that come with that just so two teams don't play 8 matches doesn't seem worth it. But maybe that's just me....

 

Yes. both formats have 8 match days each, but each team plays one less game in 16 groups of 3. I think I read that UEFA or other confeds wanted to keep it to 7 games played per team.

 

With 16 groups, the top 16 teams will be in different groups.

 

In theory yes, but also UEFA has proposed getting a total of 16 teams, from 13. They could probably justify more then 16. They also are proposing 1 Euro team in each of the 16 groups.

 

That is more than reasonable. I think 16 would be optimal for UEFA. Having one Euro team in each group would be a very good solution for all involved.

This seems like an optimal setup:
Host 1 (or more?)
UEFA 16
CAF 9
CONMEBOL 6,5
CONCACAF 6,5
AFC 8
OFC 1

 

I like what you said. My only problem is that the 7th team of Concacaf is always going to lose in the play off against 7th team of Conmebol. For conmebol, 6.5 almost means 7. That is why I think we should merge Conmebol and Concacaf and give them 13-14 slots or 4 continents should get a non-round number of WC slots or give non-round number of WC slots to each continent.

 

Not sure that's a good reason to merge CONMEBOL and CONCACAF. Should just have 7.5 spots for CONMEBOL and 5.5 for CONCACAF. That distribution would be justified by the fact that CONMEBOL has more medium and large countries than CONCACAF does.

 

IMO It is. In that case, Concacaf will never complain about the difficult task of its 7th team for qualification. For example, before Australia joined Asia, there was always complain about the difficult task of qualification for them where they usually had to beat the 5th Conmebol team who is always top 20 in the Fifa ranking. Personally I do not want to see any complain when they finish determining the number of slots for each continent. If they merge them and give them 14 slots, not only there is a high chance to see the majority of quality Conmebol teams at the WC, it also gives decent chance to top 5-6 Concacaf teams to qualify.

If they do not merge Conmenbol and Concacaf, Conmebol will not get 7.5. Suppose they do not merge them and give Conmebol 7.5, is that going to be ideal for a continent with only 10 teams? IMO It is not. Personally I think they should merge them. If they do, the number of slots for each continent should be something like this which should make almost everyone happy:

Host: 1
AFC: 7
CAF: 9
OFC: 1
Uefa: 16
Conmebol and Concacaf: 14

 

7.5 is too much for a 10 team confederation. CONCACAF has more teams so likely they will have 7 while CONMEBOL 6.

 

CONMEBOL should get only 5 direct spots, together with 3 playoff spots, each of these last ones to be played against one team from each of the other 3 weak or crappy confeds that comes next (concacrap, crapfrica and crapsia).

For the case, as it is nowdays with the playoff spot we already got, all 3 of those playoffs, would ALL be almost easy wins for the CONMEBOL teams, anyway, together with leaving no space for those who want to argue that as a Confed with low amount of members in it, that they still don't deserve them, by being the best around, proving it in a pitch, as it should always be.

 

A very good idea but I like my idea better which is merging Conmebol and Concacaf and giving them 14 slots. How do you distribute the slots for each continent if they merge Conmebol and Concacaf? How would you distribute the slots if they do not merge them?

 

CONCACAF is only a 12-team confederations disguised as a larger one. The 13th-largest country in North America is Puerto Rico. I mean come on...

CONMEBOL has more medium and large nations which is what should matter.

If that isn't convincing, then CONMEBOL should make Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana and Falkland Islands members giving a total of 14 countries, thus justifying 7.5 spots.

 

Technically Puerto Rico is not a country but I get your point Boca.

 

Sure. But until they do that it's a 10 team confed. No way is a 10 man confederation going to get more spots than a 30 spot confederation.

The only way CONMEBOL can get more slots us if they join with COMCACAF and win those slots directly

 

I don't think population should be a big factor, or places like Brazil and the US could justify more then 1 team per nation.

I can see it now... South Brazil verse North Brazil in the WC finals.

 

Rickdog, I thought about your excellent idea again. I change my idea about merging Conmebol and Concacaf and giving them 14 slots and prefer your idea now. I also remembered interviews right after approval of WC expansion which shows that Concacaf does not want to be merged with Conmebol and this is their right. In one of those interviews, a player from Concacaf region said there are a lot of high profile teams in Conmebol and
he does not want they merge these two confederations. So we can have something like this now:

Host:1
AFC: 8
OFC: 1
CAF: 9.5
UEFA: 16
Conmebol: 5 direct spots and 2 play off spots
Concacaf: 6.5

 

Nope, I don't agree with your distribution of spots at all.

If they don't go merged with Conmebol, 5 full direct spots for Concacaf is lots more than enough for them (even in a 48 team WC). They don't have the size, nor the minimum acceptable level on the game, to deserve any more than that. There is plenty of other countries round the world (not only from Conmebol or Uefa), whom are not only lots bigger nations than them, both in size and population, but also on the level of the sport that they hold.

For whatever number larger than 5 (five), that they wish to have, they should get them all on playoff spots, the same as for what I've said on respect to Conmebol.

My share, would be something like this :

Hosts : get direct spots, taken away from the direct spots allocated to the Confed to which they belong, which means that for whichever Confed that gets to host the WC, will have less spots available for the rest of the teams of their Confed, through their respectful qualifier process (you could have at most, as many hosts for the WC, as the allocated amount of spots to their Confed, minus 2, which leaves at least 2 other direct spots for the rest in their confed, plus the play-off spots, to play for) .

So, I will sort out all the 48 spots (all confeds get mostly direct spots, but also all get a few inter-confed playoff spots as well, as I strongly believe inter-confed play-off's are the most fair form to have the better teams among the weakest teams, making it to the WC, and gives more "football justice" to whom deserve them more) :

Uefa (Europe) : 15 direct spots + 1 play-off spot
CAF (Africa) : 9 direct spots + 2 play-off spots
AFC (Asia) : 8 direct spots + 1 play-off spot
Conmebol (S.America) : 5 direct spots + 3 play-off spots
Concacaf (N. & C. America) : 5 direct spots + 2 play-off spots
OFC (Oceania) : 1 direct spot + 1 play-off spot

For inter-confed playoff's, all teams at this stage are separated strictly on their rankings in 2 pots, where after a draw, one team from each pot faces each other in a home and away, match up confrontation, where the only restriction would be that 2 teams from the same confed shouldn't face each other out.

Now, if Conmebol and Concacaf, do merge, simply add both of their separated allocations, into one merged "new" Confed allocation (10 direct spots + 5 play-off spots, in which case most playoff spots would be for former Concacaf teams, as at least 8 of the direct spots will be for former Conmebol teams ).

 

I really enjoyed reading your comment specially about inter-confederation play off. You have some excellent ideas particularly having more than one play off spots for most confederations.

I totally agree with what you said before you talk about host but not agree with everything you said after that.

My distribution of spots change again after reading your last comment. Here is my distribution now although I am fine with your distribution with exception of not giving 16 direct spots to Europe and giving 1 play off spot to OFC:

Host: 1 direct spot. I think If and only if more than 1 nation hosts the tournament, they should take away from the direct spots of the continent that hosts the tournament.

UEFA: 16 direct spots. They are number 1 in terms quality and the president of UEFA confederation said
they will not accept anything less than 16 and their another request is having all of their 16 teams in 16 different group. The tournament needs 1 European team in each group. IMO 16 is the perfect number of spots for them.

Conmebol: 5 direct spots + 2 play off spots. If they get 3 play off spots, even their 8th team have chance to qualify which means that the top teams of the continent are going to slack off for qualifiers because they know that they stand a good chance to qualify even if they finish 8th in the table.

Concacaf: 5 direct spots + 2 play off spots. I cannot be disagree with you here specially you have better knowledge on Conmebol and Concacaf than me but not Asia and probably other continents

AFC: 7 direct spots + 2 play off spots.

OFC: 1 direct spot

CAF: 9 direct spots + 2 play off spots.

As you said, we should have 2 seeds for Inter-Confederation play off. The seeding should be determined based on Fifa ranking and 2 teams from the same confederation should not face each other.

 

I agree with you about taking the host spot from the confederations normal allocation which is what used to happen before expansion. I would have just allowed everyone to expand by 50% initially but UEFA seem to only want 16 rather than 19 or 20 so that's more for everyone else. Multiplying by 1.5 and rounding up to the next whole number (UEFA's generosity lets us do this) we get

UEFA 16
Conmebol 7
Asia 7
Africa 8
CONCACAF 6
OFC 1

That's still leaves us 3 spots that you can allocate however you want (I would just make UEFA 19).

 

My only problem with the first bolded part is that more than 2 countries may host the tournament. For example, if we have three hosts, then taking away three direct spots from the confederation seems too much at least for me. If less than 3 countries host the tournament, I absolutely have no problem with it.

* I would not distribute the spots the way you did it. 7 direct spots for a confederation with 10 teams is not appropriate. As Rickdog said, 5 direct spots + 2 play off spots for Concacaf is more appropriate. I agree with you about second bolded part. Despite that, 16 direct spots for Europe would offer FIFA the chance to place one European team in each group which makes the group stage more balance, and It satisfies broadcasters worried about having too many games between long shot African and Asian nations. Having more than 1 team from the same confederation for group of 3 teams in the group stage does not look very good.

*I agree with Rickdog about having many inter-confederation play off which allows to have almost every team in the tournament based on sporting merit. IMO all these factors, the size of the continent, the number of coutries with their population, and sporting merit, should be considered for determining the spots.

* If you think UEFA should get more than 16 and assume that we take the host spot from the confederations normal allocation, do not you think that the following distribution of spots would be more fair and better than what you put?

AFC: 7 direct spots + 2 play off spots
OFC: 1 direct spot
CAF: 8 direct spots + 3 play off spots
UEFA: 16 direct spots + 2 play off spots
Conmebol: 5 direct spots + 3 play off spots
Concacaf: 5 direct spots + 2 play off spots

* I am fine with the distribution of slots similar to the above distribution. As you can see, the above distribution includes 42 directs spots together with 12 play off spots.

* For inter-confederation play off, there should be 2 seeds based on FIFA ranking, and the teams from the same confederation should not face each other. The seeding can be something similar to this:

Pot 1: 3 CAF play off spots + 3 Conmebol play off spots
Pot 2: 2 UEFA play off spots + 2 AFC play off spots + 2 Concacaf play off spots