Is 64 Inevitable?

We're only a few days into the first 48-team World Cup.  A majority of the teams haven't even played their first game yet.  Yet, there's already talk of further tournament expansion as "inevitable."  Alexi Lalas has suggested that this is simply a "first step" on the way to 64, which he thinks will probably happen sooner rather than later.  In fact, if CONMEBOL had gotten their way, the Centennial World Cup in 2030 would've been a 64-team tournament.

FIFA was quick to shoot that down for 2030.  But, now that it's out there, you know it's something that'll stay in the back of everyone's minds.  And, knowing how much FIFA loves money, they'll see 64 teams as more games, which means more revenue.  So, yes, I do think we'll eventually see a 64-team World Cup.  Which isn't necessarily a good thing.  At least not right now.

When FIFA expanded the World Cup field from 24 to 32 in 1998, it was universally accepted practically immediately.  The 24-team tournament was simply too small.  It was almost too hard to qualify, and too many good teams were being left out.  Plus, 32 teams was much more straightforward.  The top two in each group advanced, and the bracket for the knockout stage was pretty much set.  No third-place teams advancing.  No five potential knockout stage opponents based on which third-place finishers qualified.

That's one of the big pros for going to 64 teams, which Lalas correctly pointed out.  In a 64-team tournament, you'd go back to not having third-place teams advancing and hundreds of possible combinations for the knockout stage bracket.  It would be like the 1998-2022 format, with the exception of it being 16 groups instead of eight and the top two in each group advancing to the Round of 32 instead of the Round of 16.  That's certainly much cleaner.  I don't think you'll find anyone who doesn't agree with that.

And, as I already mentioned, FIFA will look at the potential of expanding the World Cup and only see dollar signs.  They haven't just added 16 teams to the field.  They've added 40 games.  There were 64 games in Qatar.  There will be a total of 104 this year.  When/if they go to 64, that's four additional groups with six games in each.  So, it's not just 16 additional teams.  It's 24 additional games.  Just think about how much money FIFA can make off a 128-game tournament (double what they had in 2022).  You know they are!

After all, this year's World Cup initially wasn't originally supposed to be 104 games.  When the expansion was first announced, the plan was to have 16 groups of three and a total of 80 games.  That only became 12 groups of four playing 104 total games after the 2022 tournament.  The increased revenue that comes with playing 24 additional games wasn't the only reason that change was made, but you know it's something FIFA wasn't exactly mad about, either.

Among the reasons for the expansion to 48 teams was to give more countries an opportunity to qualify, especially in Africa and Asia.  Oceania was given a direct entry for the first time, allowing New Zealand to qualify without having to play in a playoff.  And, without the tournament expansion, we probably wouldn't see teams like World Cup debutants Curacao and Cape Verde in the field.  It's great that those teams finally have the opportunity, but we still don't know how their presence impacts the quality of the field.

Every time you expand a tournament, that's the risk you run (as the NCAA will find out come March).  There may be a handful of good teams that had previously been left out and are now being included.  But are there enough of those teams to fill the number of additional spots?  And it was absolutely phenomenal to see Curacao playing Germany.  Being on the same field as the Germans was enough.  Scoring a goal in that game instantly became the greatest moment in the country's sporting history.  But, as great as that experience was for Curacao, they still lost 7-1.

In the 32-team World Cup, the number of overmatched, low-ranked teams was limited.  Sure, there were still blowouts occasionally.  But, for the most part, the games were always competitive.  We aren't even through the first group games in the first 48-team tournament yet, so we have no idea how many of these additional teams can actually compete.  We'll need a bigger sample size than just this tournament before we can make any conclusions about that anyway.  So, let's wait for the tournament to play out first.  It's way too early to even start thinking about going to 64.

There are those who'll remain vigorously opposed to 64 no matter what, and only partially because of how it may dilute the product.  Qualifying for the World Cup is supposed to be difficult, and the tournament itself is designed to be exclusive.  Only those countries that make it through the rigors of qualifying get the honor of playing in it.  A 48-team field is still fairly exclusive.  If they go to 64, though, nearly 30 percent of all FIFA members will make the final tournament.  Would that take away some of the luster?

How would an expansion to 64 teams even work?  As it stands, 60 percent of CONMEBOL already makes the World Cup.  There are only 10 teams in the confederation and six have direct entry (plus one spot in the final qualifying tournament).  Even adding one spot for CONMEBOL would mean that 70 percent of South American teams get into every World Cup, which they would love, but I'm sure UEFA and the other confederations might have some different thoughts about.

UEFA currently gets 16 spots.  Part of the reason for that is because they didn't want European teams to have to play each other in group play, so when the expansion was first announced, the idea was that they'd have only one European team in each of the 16 groups.  That obviously isn't what ended up happening.  Four groups have two European teams.  So, you could conceivably give UEFA eight of the 16 additional spots to get to 24 (eight groups with two teams, eight groups with one).  Which is the same number of teams that's played in the Euro since 2016.  Would they then have to consider expanding the Euro to 32 teams, just to keep it so that it's easier to make the continental tournament?

Which leaves CONCACAF, Africa, Asia and Oceania for the remaining additional berths.  Those are the four weakest confederations, which would only add to the quality vs. quantity discussions.  Yes, the increased opportunity and exposure for nations in those confederations would have a positive effect in that it would lead to increased funding, etc.  But, you'd also be adding mainly smaller, lower-ranked countries to the World Cup field.  Which could lead to more overmatched teams getting blown out.  How exactly does that enhance the tournament experience for anybody?

So, moral of the story, let's not jump the gun.  Will the World Cup eventually expand to 64 teams?  Probably.  Anytime soon?  It's way too early to tell.  Let's let the first 48-team tournament (which only just started) finish.  Then we'll go from there.