The FIFA World Cup has undergone numerous changes in recent years, with the upcoming 2026 edition set to feature 48 national teams for the first time. However, plans for the 2030 tournament have sparked new controversy, as UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin slammed FIFA and its president, Gianni Infantino, over a proposal to expand the event even further.
On March 5, Ignacio Alonso, president of the Uruguayan Football Association, proposed expanding the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams during a FIFA Council videoconference. The edition would mark the tournament’s 100th anniversary, as the first World Cup was held in 1930.
At a press conference following Thursday’s UEFA Congress in Belgrade, Ceferin offered his first reaction to the proposal. “This proposal was perhaps even more surprising for me than for you,” he stated.
Ceferin then expressed clear opposition to the idea, claiming that such an expansion would undermine the integrity of UEFA’s qualification process: “I think it’s a bad idea. I don’t think it’s a good idea for the World Cup itself, and it’s not a good idea for our qualification phase either.
“So I don’t support that idea. It’s strange that we didn’t know anything about it before this proposal was made at the end of the FIFA Council meeting. I don’t know where it came from,” he added. His comments come amid growing tensions between UEFA and FIFA, exacerbated by a congested calendar and the new 32-team Club World Cup set to debut in 2025.
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Infantino’s stance on the 64-team World Cup
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has championed sweeping changes to international soccer over the last decade. From hosting the first World Cup in the Middle East (Qatar 2022), to expanding the 2026 tournament to 48 teams, and introducing a revamped Club World Cup, his tenure has been marked by aggressive global expansion.
Although Infantino was present at the UEFA Congress, he did not publicly address the 64-team proposal. FIFA, for its part, called the idea “spontaneous” and stated that it has “a duty to evaluate” such proposals—without disclosing the president’s personal position.
