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Fifa president Gianni Infantino has proposed expanding the World Cup finals to 48 teams - after initially suggesting he wanted to boost it to 40.
According to the 46-year-old Italian, 16 countries would be eliminated after a preliminary knockout round.
The rest of the tournament would then be the same as it is now, with 32 teams competing in the group stages, followed by further knockout rounds.
Infantino said a decision on possible expansion would be taken in January.
Horrendous decision. The 16-from-24 set-up in the Euros killed the group stages completely by incentivising absolutely everyone to play defensively safe in the knowledge that remaining unbeaten would almost certainly see you qualify.
In addition, the weaker teams that the system was supposed to benefit ended up being overpromoted and to some extent, unfairly resented as they clearly went further in the competition than they really deserved to.
Northern Ireland, who lost three of their four matches were a particularly good example. You wanted them to do well but to watch the BBC commentators trying to present their playing our a 1-0 defeat as part of some glorious cup run was pretty cringe. It was a shame really. Let them make a decent fist of the group stages, by all means praise them for keeping things alive until their final match in a tough group, but let them go gracefully.
Originally posted by @BTripz
Link here
Fifa president Gianni Infantino has proposed expanding the World Cup finals to 48 teams - after initially suggesting he wanted to boost it to 40.
According to the 46-year-old Italian, 16 countries would be eliminated after a preliminary knockout round.
The rest of the tournament would then be the same as it is now, with 32 teams competing in the group stages, followed by further knockout rounds.
Infantino said a decision on possible expansion would be taken in January.
Why, why why? Who is it actually going to benefit?
More matches, more TV more advertising, more revenue for FIFA just about sums it up I should think.
If they reduced the number of groups, and then the prelim tournament gave you a couple of ‘best of the rest’ entrants into the tournament proper, like they do in the cricket WC, this might make a modicum of sense (though not much). As it is, this just sounds like an exercise to extend the duration of the event, to maximise ad revenue.
As MrTramp says, expanding the Euros led to a dilution of the quality.
If you’re going to expand it, should be 64 teams. That gets around MrTrampoline’s problem with boring group games. Get one more round of knockout. Job done.
64 teams, straight knock out tournament, no seeding. Maximum 6 games for any team and TV gets lots of games. Should give more teams a chance at winning it as well.
Why stop at 48? 96 teams please. That would ensure that the host countries can only be the huge, minted, nations that can afford to have that many teams and games, while paying handsomely for the rights. Sorted 
He was elected on plans to go to 40, but now wants to go to 48.
Hmmmm, maybe a job for the Torygraph’s crack team of under cover journalists to unearth the “truth”…
Because it’s not a fucking power of two!
Fuck’s sakes. It’s as everyone else hasn’t spent their lives obsessing over binary.
Er, 48 first round knockout games. 48 teams left. Which is what he is proposing, but with an extra round. Thank fuck that you are not in charge of greasing FIFA palms
48 teams in knockout rounds would eventually leave you with 3 teams after a few rounds have been played.
This is why the power of two is important.
So then the top ranked 16 teams from the knockout phase get a bye into the next group/knockout phase. Or do you get it knocked down to 24, and then apply a bye to the 8 highest ranked teams that are left?
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OK, 209 countries elgible for FIFA world cup.
1st round of 104 games, with the hosts getting a bye, leaves 105 teams
2nd round of 52 games, with the top ranked team left after the 1st round getting a bye, leaves 53 teams, so highest ranked loser gets a lucky loser spot, leaves 54 teams
3rd round is 9 groups of 6 with top placed teams going through and the 7 best 2nd placed teams (5 games per team)
4th round of 16 teams
5th round of 8
6th round of 4 or the semi-finals
7th round finals.
So, that’s loads of games for FIFA to sell advertising and overpirced tickets for, and suitably complicated. Maybe make the semis and the finals over 2 legs too.
Good idea to send out the lesser nations first in Qatar. At least then we’ll know how many deaths to expect in the monied teams.
I’m all for expanding tournaments if it means less or no qualifying matches. The amount of pressure on teams to succeed makes them like an extension of the tournaments anyway, so might as well fold them into the competitions. I’d reduce the group stages to 3 teams though (would do this for CL as well) to make it more competitive.
Perhaps they could throw in some under 21/23 teams and a few B sides and get it up to over 100 teams? FFS! They always have to mess with the format of things. Greed in football - NEVER!
Perhaps we could have a knockout competition of all the English clubs and the winning team gets to represent England?
I know, I know, there will be a few administrative details like giving all the foreign players English citizenship, but a bung here and there will sort that out.
Hell, we could even sell the idea to the Irish, Welsh and Scotts - we’ll be millionaires I tell you, millionaires!! Not to mention we’ll have the thanks of a grateful nation for them not having to watch the usual lot of deadbeats and losers making a meal of qualifying and then going out at the early stages!
Infantile is pretty confident he’s going to get the finals enlarged. But why stop there!!
Why not invite every single country to the show?
“Aah” I hear you say . (Along with “shut up, you fucking idiot”.) “it will be too much for one country to hold”.
Well the answer is then to split all the sides into say 32 GROUPS, preferably done on a regional basis, to save on travelling and ozone layer depletion and all that bollocks and let them play home and away, until one side has won the GROUP , then let the 32 winners play in the host country.
I think I’m onto something here. Wait till I tell my mate Sepp.
It is a comletely shit idea - infantino’s not Lets B’s
Why don’t we do it the FA way? - non competitive, 64 teams, no league tables, everyone gets a prize.
It got voted through by the FIFA commitee, 2026 will see 48 teams invloved.
No-one, apart from FIFA, thinks this is a good idea.