By Ojima-ojo Abubakar
Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, says the organisation will mull over expanding the World Cup to 64 teams.
In a chat with Blue News, a Swiss news platform, the FIFA president said the relevant committees in the organisation will examine and discuss the expansion in the near future.
Infantino equated giving “smaller countries” opportunities to participate in the World Cup with handing those nations “incentive to keep improving”.
“That’s definitely an issue that will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees after this World Cup,” the FIFA president said.
“When organising a World Cup, it’s important to organise it for the whole world—not just Europe and South America, but effectively the entire world. Every nation should be allowed to dream of participating in the World Cup. You can see that the quality of the teams is extremely high—and it’s getting higher and higher, all over the world. If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving.”
The World Cup was expanded from 32 teams to 48 for the ongoing edition co-hosted by the US, Mexico and Canada.
Infantino said the expansion has been a success “100 percent” citing the feat of nine of ten African teams advancing from the group stage.
“It’s been a huge success with 48 teams. Every team played at a high level,” he said.
“Teams from every continent scored goals and earned at least one point. Nine out of ten African teams reached the knockout stage. At the last World Cup, there were only five teams from Africa. That just goes to show how important it is to include all teams—to give them this opportunity to participate.”
The 2030 World Cup is the centenary edition of the competition and will be hosted primarily by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, with a few games held in Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina. Uruguay hosted the first-ever World Cup in 1930.
