UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin criticised FIFA’s proposed expansion of the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams, calling it “a bad idea” during UEFA’s congress in Belgrade on Thursday.
The 2026 tournament, set to be hosted by the United States, Mexico, and Canada, will already feature an expanded 48-team format. However, Uruguayan football federation president Ignacio Alonso suggested further increasing the number of teams during a FIFA Council meeting in March.
Football’s governing body stated that it “had a duty to analyse” the proposal, but Ceferin strongly opposed it.
“It’s maybe even more surprising for me than for you. I think it’s a bad idea,” Ceferin said. “It’s not a good idea for the World Cup itself, and it’s not a good idea for our qualifiers as well. So, I’m not supporting that idea. I don’t know where it came from. It’s strange that we didn’t know anything before this proposal at the FIFA Council.”
The 2030 World Cup will take place across three continents, with Portugal, Spain, and Morocco as the main hosts. Additionally, three matches will be played in South America—in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay—to mark the tournament’s centenary. The inaugural World Cup was held in 1930 in Uruguay.
That decision also set the stage for Saudi Arabia to host the 2034 edition.
