48 or 64 teams in 2030? FIFA awaits an independent study by 11 September

The 2030 World Cup will be played with 48 teams. That is the official format, the same as 2026, and nothing else has been voted through. But the question of a 64-team tournament — 128 matches — has been open since April 2025, when the South American confederation (CONMEBOL) proposed it as an exceptional format for the centenary.

Where the process stands

• 12 July 2026 — Gianni Infantino confirms that FIFA will “examine and discuss” a 64-team format after the 2026 World Cup.
• 31 July 2026 — The FIFA Council decides to appoint an independent agency to assess “whether and how” expansion would affect the competition: sporting dilution, the calendar, operational complexity, revenue viability.
• 14 August 2026 — Date set for selecting the agency.
• 11 September 2026 — Deadline for delivering the analysis (four weeks).

No date for a vote has been announced.

For and against

CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez stated on 21 July 2026: “There will be 64 teams at the 2030 World Cup.” That is the position of a backer of the project, not a decision. On the other side, Aleksander Čeferin (UEFA) has said expansion “was not a good idea” and Sheikh Salman (AFC) asked “where the expansion will stop”.

Why it matters to you

A move to 64 teams would change the number of matches (128 instead of 104), the split between the three countries, the calendar and probably the stadium list. Uruguay has in fact made the renovation of the Centenario conditional on this decision: with only one match, the investment is considered hard to justify.

We will update this article once the study is published.