The 2026 FIFA World Cup has barely drawn to a close, and already the football world is debating what comes next. FIFA president Gianni Infantino has signalled that discussions about further expanding the tournament for the 2030 edition will now begin in earnest — and a 64-team World Cup is firmly on the table.

A tournament that could last six weeks

The arithmetic of a 64-team tournament is staggering. With 64 sides, you cannot split them into groups of three, so the format would require 16 groups of four — producing 96 group-stage matches alone, up from 72 in 2026.

The 48-team group stage this summer was completed across 16 days, averaging 4.5 matches per day. At that same pace, a 64-team group stage would take three weeks. Add another three weeks for the knockout rounds — as was the case in 2026 — and you have a six-week tournament. Factor in pre-tournament preparation time, and the 1,664 players involved would effectively surrender two months of their season.

More goals, but at what cost?

More matches will inevitably mean record-breaking goal tallies. The switch from 64 to 104 games in 2026 already shattered previous benchmarks — 308 goals were scored this summer, compared to 172 four years ago. A 64-team tournament would push those numbers even further.

Notably, the 2026 World Cup also produced a higher goals-per-game rate: 2.96, compared to roughly 2.6 across the three preceding tournaments. Sky Sports data suggests this is partly driven by a greater FIFA ranking gap between the best and weakest sides — a disparity that would only widen with 64 nations competing.

The end of third-place qualification

A 64-team format brings one structural simplification: the much-discussed third-placed qualification route would be scrapped entirely. With 16 groups, only the top two sides from each group could advance to a round of 32, removing the complex calculations that determined which third-placed teams progressed.

However, this reintroduces a familiar problem from the old 32-team era — dead-rubber final group matches where results are already decided. To maintain jeopardy in those games, FIFA would likely need to restore goal difference above head-to-head record as the primary tiebreaker.

No single nation could host alone

Perhaps the most significant structural consequence is what a 64-team tournament means for hosting. The 2026 edition uses 15 stadiums to stage 104 matches across 16 groups. Scaling that up to 64 teams and 128 matches would require roughly 20 venues.

For context, if England were to host such a tournament, almost every Premier League ground — including Wembley — would need to be pressed into service. The era of single-nation hosting appears to be over: the 2028 European Championships span the UK and Ireland, the 2030 World Cup involves six countries, and the 2032 European Championships are split between Italy and Turkey. Saudi Arabia, the sole host for the 2034 FIFA World Cup, faced similar feasibility questions when a 48-team Qatar 2022 was briefly considered.

Who would qualify?

A 64-team World Cup would bring 30 percent of all FIFA member nations to the finals. Based on the current confederation allocation model, the rough breakdown would look something like this:

Europe would receive the largest share with 21 spots, followed by Africa on 12, Asia on 10, North and Central America and the Caribbean on 8, South America on 8, Oceania on 1, and four play-off spots shared across various confederations.

For Africa, that would represent a significant jump — and more opportunity for the continent's footballing nations to compete on the world's biggest stage.