Concacaf president Victor Montagliani has voiced strong opposition to proposals to expand the 2030 FIFA World Cup to 64 teams. The idea, put forward by South America’s Conmebol, has already been met with criticism from multiple football authorities, including Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
The 2030 World Cup will be hosted by Spain, Morocco, and Portugal, with the opening matches in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. While the 2026 World Cup will expand to 48 teams, Conmebol’s proposal aims to mark the centennial anniversary of the tournament by further increasing the number of participating teams.
Montagliani argued against the expansion, stating that adding more teams would disrupt the broader football ecosystem, including national teams, clubs, leagues, and players. He noted that the 48-team format for 2026 has yet to be implemented, suggesting that increasing the size of the tournament again would be premature.
The decision to increase the World Cup to 48 teams for 2026 was made in 2017 with unanimous support at a FIFA congress. However, the discussion about expanding to 64 teams for 2030 could be raised at FIFA’s 75th congress in Paraguay on May 15, where Conmebol’s proposal will likely be debated.
If approved, the 2030 World Cup would feature 128 matches, double the 64-match format used in previous editions from 1998 to 2022. Both Ceferin and AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa have expressed concerns about the proposal, with Al-Khalifa warning that expanding beyond 64 teams could lead to “chaos.”
As the debate heats up, it remains to be seen whether FIFA will approve the controversial proposal for the tournament’s centennial edition.
