FIFA boss says soccer federations back expanded World Cup

It's a ridiculous idea. It's too unwieldy and ends up devaluing the whole thing. 16 teams, 4 groups of 4, is good enough. Each game then has rarity value. Even now I lose interest in the world cup about half way through because there are too many games.

@Moonraker - completely agree. These greedy execs, in their efforts to increase the value of their bank accounts are devaluing the tournament and the sport.

16 is too few (imo) and 48 far too many, 32 is about right.

12-20 nations WC is fine for most sports (Ice hockey, hand, basket, volley, rugby etc) but football is so competitive/dense that a tournament with only 16 qualified teams would be too restrictive. ( that's 3 south americans, 1 or 2 concacaf, 5-6 euros, a couple of Africans and Asians...too few I reckon)

As I stated previously, I am for the 48 format. Last World Cup was fun to watch. There was the drama of Brazil losing 7-0 to almighty Germany. And the fun of Algeria and Colombia. There's room for national teams that need incentive for development in Oceania, Africa, Central Europe and Asia. Also, I don't see why the tournament would lose shine. The group of 10 ten teams will always be the ones in the finals.

@goldorak

I agree 16 is too few. Football has developed around the world from the 70s when there were 16 and there is enough quality around the world to have 32 respectable sides in the World Cup. The last tournament saw unfancied teams like Algeria and Costa Rica doing very well. The group stage of the last World Cup was as good as I've seen.

32 teams is about right.

Infantino, speaking at a sports conference, said a 48-team tournament was the most financially appealing structure.

What Infantino really meant: "we will do our utmost to ensure countries such as China, Qatar and a few others are present at every WC".

As an aside Shanghai just signed Carlos Tevez for 40M euros/year (2 seasons deal, more than Messi and CR7)

The odour of the pork-barrel and corruption is already wafting through the boardroom of FIFA, even with the new 'clean-everything-up' President Gianni Infantino, though he was a protege of Sepp Blatter. Now that Blatter is out of the picture, there must be huge pickings going for the new board from these potential new teams.