World Cup expansion brainstorming

I would do the opposite and expand the inter-continental playoffs for the following reasons:

• bigger WC means less filtering to do in qualifying, so WCQ should be shorter leaving more time for playoffs.
• the current 6-team playoff is lopsided and unfair (not a power of 2).
• they make the intra-confederation qualifying games more meaningful. For e..g if CONMEBOL gets 6+2 spots, it makes their qualifying more meaningful than if they just received 7 spots guaranteed.
• when the WC was 32 teams, a large inter-continental playoff system had the risk of producing a WC where 1 world region might not well represented. That risk doesn't exist in a 64-team WC.
• nobody wants to see 2 OFC teams in the WC finals, and if you didn't have these playoffs you'd be forced to give them 2 guaranteed spots.

I am thinking of a 16-team playoff to determine the last 4 spots. But you can even do a 32-team playoff to determine the last 4 spots, given the longer FIFA window in October.

 

Inter-confederation playoffs would likely still be played in March though.

I'm not a fan of them myself.

 

There is no reason for them to be played in March, apart from poor planning. There are nearly 20 FIFA windows b/w WCs - space to comfortably fit 30 qualifying games for every national team.

 

If they involve UEFA teams they have to be in March because the European Qualifiers groups don't finish until November.

UEFA has already claimed the March window in odd years for UNL QFs and promotion/relegation playoffs.

 

Those are just rules they made up the last time UEFA execs sat down for coffee and someone brainfarted. They could easily change that and put the schedule back to where it was before, with UEFA playoffs in November. If they managed to finish WC qualifying in March (2026) despite a winter WC in 2022, they have time to end WCQ 2030 one window sooner given they have a full 4 years b/w WCs.

 

While the world cup with 64 teams is sure a bad idea, with 48 teams is even a terrible one, 3rd place teams should be sacking their coaches not consider themselves made it out of the group stage, so yeah I prefer 64 over 48, but wither its 48 or 64

I would highly advise not to allocate full 48/64 seats to confederations and instead let 16/32 seats be playoffs! (16 if it's 48 team / 32 if it's 64), meaning the first 32 seats should be directly split between the confederations to assure fair presentations, for example UEFA=10 CAF=7 AFC=5 CONMEBOL=5 CONCACAF=4 OCEANIA=1, as for the other 16/32 spots, they should be all international playoffs, therefore each confederation will have its deserved number of qualified nations, if Europe deserves 20 so be it and so on, but first they must deduct few seats from those 16/32 playoff spots and give them to the hosts, as for how to decide how many teams from each confederation will be in playoffs? well that's up to FIFA to decide, but make the playoffs all home and away single matches, the winners qualifies for the world cup,

I believe this would keep the excitement in the actual continental qualifiers because everyone would want to avoid the playoffs, plus we'll get to experience international playoffs again with teams traveling to other continents depending on the draw.

 

Shrink the World Cup back to 32, but expand the intercontinental playoffs.

And mandate that ALL FEDERATIONS use no more than 12 matchdays to complete their qualifying, with 4 matchdays being reserved for a 16-country intercontinental playoff.

Get all the minnows eliminated through a qualifying round so that you can use 6 country/10 matchday qualifying groups.

 

My idea:

62 teams total qualify. Not sure of the continental distribution, we can work on that later, but the gist of it is that the World Cup would take place in two stages, potentially but not necessarily in two different countries. The second stage hosts and defending champions get byes to the second stage. The other 60 teams are drawn into a preliminary group stage, which would take place approximately 6 months before the second stage (e.g. if the second stage can only host in the northern winter, the first stage would be held in the preceding northern summer, and vice versa). There would be 15 groups of 4, and the top 2 in each group would advance to the second stage, where the 32 teams (30 from 1st stage + hosts + defending champs) would be drawn into 8 groups of 4 and gather in a single country according to the traditional World Cup format.

This would appease both the execs, who have more games to sell to TV networks, and fans, because we get the coveted 32 team format back.

 

Keep it 32 until maybe like the 2040s?

 

I am a big fan of 48 teams, but with a bye round for the best 8 group winners in a wild card round for the remainins 16 teams that qualified as the 4 worst winners and all the 12 runner-up.

That leave the 3rd placed teams out of the knock out phase and increases the competition as teams, that have already qualified will not line up a secondary team in the last group match as they still have something to fight for (in this case having a bye at the wild card round).

 

Would that work in terms of having balanced rest periods between teams from the R16 onwards because it would involve the 8 highest-ranked group winners skipping the playoff round? The big attraction of it is that - like with the 32-team format - the 2 lowest-ranked teams in each group would be eliminated.

I agree that 48 teams can work providing the format is adapted like you suggest (the traditional format featuring groups of 4 teams each that FIFA is using only works when the number of teams is to the power of two).

I prefer 4 x groups of 12 teams each with each team playing 3 games against one team from each of the other 3 pots (Swiss model), with each group featuring 6 simultaneous games on MD3 and the 4 highest-ranked teams qualifying for the R16.

Conclusion: 48 teams > 64 teams providing the format is adapted.

 

and we have not yet talked about quality. if you have 48 teams with a round of 32, the quality does not increase with having 64 teams with a round of 32. The opposite is the case.

as for the rest days. if you cluster 3 groups each into 4 divisions ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL and determine only 2 bye spots per division and then the worst winner + 3 runners-up facing each other in 2 matches of the wild card round, you can have the wild card round matches for ABC starting immediately at the day after the last group matchday of JLK with their 6 last matchday parallel matches.

the only debatable negative part of it, is that not exactly the 8 best group winners out of 12 get the bye to the round of 16, but the 2 best group winners of 4 division, which might result in one winner of one division getting a bye at the coat of another winner of another division sdespite having the better reault at the group stage.

but if one question this, then one should also question, why chile is out of u17 world cup 2025 with 4 points after the groul stage, while egypt is in the knock out stage with 3 points.

with 3-4 simple rules, the wild card round and the path at the next stages are allocated. there would be no need for a 495 entry stong matchup table on who plays who in the round of 32.

and as a supersmart side effect, with that allocation system, that I invented, it is also guaranteed, that 2 teams comming out of the very same group cannot face each other again before the world cup final (like in the good old days of 8x4 groups). so, if the the 2 best teams come from the same group, they meet each other again at the finals. exactly how it should be.

 

The March window in odd years now belongs to the UNL League A QFs and promotion/relegation playoffs; any attempt by FIFA to change that would need UEFA's agreement during the current post-2030 IMC negotiations.

 

Whilst the windows are UEFA's to do with as they please FIFA could still place a requirement that all participating teams must be decided by the November 2029 window (including any playoffs). UEFA could just have 16 groups of 3 or 4 teams to determine their 16. The June and Sept/Oct windows could complete those groups. Not sure they really need quarter finals and should just go back to the old semi final format but they could always play quarters and semis in March and put the finalists in 3 team groups. It makes qualifying a lot more cut throat but a few European posters here seem to like a more cut throat process with less games.

 

unless it was infantino play from the very beginning.
south america accepted those three games very easy, and now the proposal comes from them ....that is quite suspicious

of coure, another question is who can stage 64 teams world cup in the years after 2030, but I do not think infantino cares too much about that

 

One problem with expanding the tournament is that qualification has become tediously easy for some of the best teams. How about giving automatic qualification spots to those nations that reach the QTR finals or even last 16 at the previous World Cup. Those spots to come out of their federation's quota. This will free up those teams to play in some other, more competitive, fixtures. Possibly even another tournament. Perhaps take inspiration from the European Nations League or the end of seasons finals in Tennis.

This is more of a problem in Europe than elsewhere. While Brazil and Argentina are guaranteed to qualify at least they play each other during the process and those are competitive rivalry fixtures. Asian qualification could go the same way as Europe if the tournament size increases. Africa has always seemed to have more variability but as the game grows on that continent it would be surprising if some nations didn't become effective automatic qualifiers in a larger tournament.

A World Nations League run under a similar format to either the current European Champions League group stage or some sub groups with semi-finals and final held in a host city could be a goer. I could see this being very popular with FIFA.

64 team World Cup with the last 8 or 16 auto qualifying for the next edition and playing in a Nations League. The chance for more countries/cities to host very competitive and prestigious international football. Additional reward for progressing in the World Cup. An end to often boring one-sided qualifiers. More World Cup spots for lower ranked nations.

Is there something I haven't thought of?

 

Remember that the two co-hosts' spots come out of the overall UEFA allocation of 16.5 spots.

Easiest solution would just be to scrap the UNL quarterfinals and pro/rel playoffs, and go back to 9 groups of 5 or 6 teams. You could qualify the 9 group winners and the best runners-up automatically. The remaining 4.5 spots could be contested in home and away playoffs among the remaining 8 runners-up plus 2 teams from the NL. Rank runners-up by group record and you could organize the playoffs as follows:

RU2 v NL2
RU3 v NL1
RU4 v RU 9
RU5 v RU8
RU6 v RU7 (winner goes to IC playoff)

 

UEFA won't scrap the March window (odd years) UNL knockout round (League A QFs and promotion/relegation playoffs) because it has increased fan engagement with European NT football, so the current UNL format is fixed.

Meanwhile, the format of the European Qualifiers is under review and a revision based on the Swiss model might be introduced post- EURO 2028.

EURO qualifying playoffs are also in the March window (even years) so I don't think that will change going forward.

 

I feel like this problem has been largely addressed outside of CONMEBOL. The qualifiers are shorter now than in the past, so even if its easy for some teams, we are not talking about a lot of matches. And very few dead-rubber matches. At most big UEFA teams (Spain, Croatia and England) had 2 dead rubber matches at the end of qualifying. Most had just 1. In C'CAF nobody had any.

So, I think we're okay for the 48-team WC (apart from C'BOL whose qualifying has undoubtably gotten more tedious with expansion). If it expands to 64, the issue you raise will become more noticeable.

 

I certainly hope UEFA won't adopt any format that moves us away from the traditional home-and-away round robin.

 

Why not?

Personally I think the current format is good: teams play similarly-ranked opponents in the UNL and have the possibility to be promoted and relegated while the lower-ranked teams have the opportunity to play the higher-ranked ones in the European Qualifiers.

However, a format of perhaps three leagues - A and B with 20 teams each and C with 15 teams (assuming full roster of 55 teams) - based on the Swiss Model where each team plays, say, six games in the September-October and November FIFA windows of odd years with automatic qualification for the EURO or WC for the highest-ranked League A teams and playoffs the following March for other teams.

We might know more after the next UEFA ExCo meeting on 3 December.

 

On reflection, would it not be it a good idea for all confederations - with the possible exception of Conmebol because of its greater parity - to use at least two leagues for both WC and continental championship qualification?

That way:
- the qualifying games would be more competitive;
- only teams in the highest league would be able to qualify directly;
- teams in the lower league(s) would still have an opportunity to qualify via playoffs;
- you avoid eliminating teams after a handful of games in a preliminary round which still happens in Asia, Concacaf and Oceania, thereby excluding those teams from meaningful games for extensive periods.

 

Not sure how effective that would be in CONCACAF and AFC with large numbers of teams and limited WC spots available. It would be very hard to structure a process that is fair to everyone. I think AFC could restructure their process a bit to include all members in an initial group stage before separating their WC and AC cup qualifying processes which means every nation gets at least 2 group stage processes each cycle. which means no one only gets 4 matches every 4 years that mean something.