FIFA Weighs 64-Team World Cup Expansion for 2030 as China Eyes Path Back to Global Stage

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said this week that a proposal to expand the World Cup finals from 48 to 64 teams will be formally reviewed by the organization’s relevant commissioner once the current 2026 tournament concludes, opening a new debate over the future scale of global soccer’s biggest event even before this year’s edition has crowned a champion.

Infantino discussed the potential expansion in an interview with Swiss outlet Blue Sports, saying the next phase of growth for the tournament could be evaluated in time for the 2030 World Cup, which is set to mark the competition’s 100th anniversary. That edition is already scheduled to be held across six countries, with Morocco, Portugal and Spain serving as primary hosts and Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay each staging a single commemorative match to honor the tournament’s origins in Uruguay in 1930.

The current 2026 World Cup, being co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, marked the tournament’s first expansion to 48 teams, up from the 32-team format used since 1998. Under the new structure, 12 groups of four teams sent their top two finishers, along with the eight best third-place teams, into an expanded round of 32, pushing the total number of matches from 64 up to 104. Infantino has called the 48-team experiment a success, pointing to figures showing teams from every confederation scored goals and picked up points during the group stage, and noting that nine of Africa’s 10 participating nations advanced out of the group phase. He has argued that widening the tournament’s field gives smaller footballing nations a realistic chance to dream of World Cup qualification, which he says helps sustain development and investment in the sport globally.

A formal competition format for a potential 64-team tournament has not yet been determined. The most straightforward structural option would organize the field into 16 groups of four teams, with winners and runners-up from each group advancing to a round of 32, producing 96 group-stage matches and 32 knockout matches for a total of 128 matches, 24 more than the current tournament. Implementing that format would require FIFA to reassess the overall tournament schedule, player rest periods, the number of host stadiums needed and the travel distances required of participating teams, particularly given the format under consideration would already span six host nations across multiple continents in 2030.

News of Infantino’s comments quickly spread through Chinese soccer media and online forums, where fans and commentators began speculating about how many additional qualifying slots the Asian confederation might receive under an expanded format. Asia currently holds eight direct qualification slots for the World Cup finals, plus one intercontinental playoff spot; in the current 2026 cycle, Iraq advanced through that playoff route, bringing Asia’s total representation to nine teams. Some Chinese outlets have speculated that Asia’s overall allotment could grow to roughly 11 slots under a 64-team format, a projection that generated significant excitement online even though FIFA has not released any formal continental distribution plan tied to the proposed expansion.

That excitement reflects China’s prolonged absence from the World Cup stage. The Chinese men’s national team has not qualified for the tournament finals since co-hosting the 2002 World Cup alongside South Korea and Japan. Despite the expansion to 48 teams for the current cycle, which significantly increased Asia’s direct qualification slots, China still failed to secure a spot. According to FIFA’s official world rankings released June 11, China sits 91st globally, a position Chinese media outlets have calculated as somewhere between 13th and 15th within Asia alone, depending on the specific ranking methodology and timing used. Even under a hypothetical scenario granting Asia 11 or 12 total slots at a 64-team World Cup, China would not automatically qualify given its current standing.

The Asian nations currently ranked ahead of China remain tightly bunched near the top of the confederation, led by Japan, Iran, South Korea and Australia, followed closely by Uzbekistan, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, with Indonesia, Bahrain and Thailand occupying a similar competitive tier to China. Analysts note that even with additional qualification slots on the table, the outcome of a single qualifying match could still meaningfully shift the competitive order among these closely matched sides.

China’s struggles were not resolved by the current cycle’s expansion either. The final round of Asian World Cup qualifying grew to 18 teams for the 2026 cycle, with additional qualification pathways opened for teams finishing third and fourth in their groups, yet China still failed to advance through that broader structure. Analysts have noted that a larger overall field does not substitute for improvements in the national team’s core fundamentals, including defensive organization, scoring output, youth development pipelines and domestic league competitiveness.

For other established Asian powers such as South Korea and Japan, the calculus surrounding a potential expansion differs considerably. Both nations have focused less on qualification itself and more on how an enlarged field might affect overall competitiveness once teams reach the finals, with some analysts cautioning that a larger tournament could reduce the intensity of qualifying competition while widening the gap between top-tier teams, who would benefit from extended tournament schedules, and lower-ranked nations gaining wider access to the finals for the first time.

Commercial considerations are also expected to factor heavily into FIFA’s eventual decision. A jump to 128 total matches would meaningfully expand broadcasting rights, advertising inventory and ticket sales opportunities, even as it raises the operational costs and logistical complexity of staging a tournament spread across six host countries in 2030.

With FIFA’s total membership standing at 211 national federations, a 64-team World Cup would mean roughly three of every 10 member nations would qualify for the finals, a shift that would open the tournament’s door to countries for whom a single World Cup appearance has remained a decades-long ambition, while raising fresh questions about how the competition’s overall prestige and quality might be affected by such a significant expansion.

Infantino’s comments this week represent only the opening of that conversation rather than a formal decision. With the 2026 World Cup final still to be played, FIFA has indicated that a formal review of the 64-team proposal, including continental qualification allocations and competition format, will follow only after this year’s tournament concludes, leaving China and other hopeful nations to wait for further clarity on a plan that, for now, remains entirely theoretical.