The president of South America’s football governing body, CONMEBOL, urged FIFA on Thursday to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams as a special gesture to mark the tournament’s 100th anniversary.
Speaking at the opening of CONMEBOL’s 80th Congress, Alejandro Dominguez suggested that increasing the number of participating nations would create a more inclusive global celebration of the World Cup.
The 2030 edition is already set to make history, with matches scheduled across six countries on three continents. While the majority of games in the planned 48-team tournament will be hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, the opening matches will take place in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay — the countries that hosted the inaugural World Cup in 1930.
Dominguez argued that expanding the tournament to 64 teams would create more opportunities for South American nations to host matches.
“We are proposing, for the only time, to hold this centennial with 64 teams on three continents, simultaneously, so that all countries have the opportunity to experience a World Cup and so that no one on this planet is left out of this celebration,” Dominguez said.
Increasing the field of teams would enable more South American countries to participate.
World football’s governing body FIFA has already increased the size of the 2026 World Cup to 48 teams, up from 32 at the Qatar World Cup in 2022.
A 64-team World Cup would effectively lead to a 128-game tournament — twice the number of matches held in 2022.
FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino participated in Thursday’s CONMEBOL Congress, which was held via videoconference, and highlighted the “exceptional milestone” that the 2030 tournament will represent.
The idea of a 64-team World Cup was first raised at a FIFA Council meeting in March by Uruguay Football Federation chief Ignacio Alonso.
However the proposal was met with scepticism by Aleksander Ceferin, the head of European football’s governing body UEFA, who described it as a “bad idea”.
“It’s maybe even more surprising for me than for you. I think it’s a bad idea,” Ceferin said.
“I think it’s not a good idea for the World Cup itself and it’s not a good idea for our qualifiers as well, as you know. So, I’m not supporting that idea, he said.