ZURICH: FIFA is to study a proposal to expand the 2030 Centenary World Cup to 64 teams for its three-continent finals in Morocco, Spain and Portugal, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, where the inaugural edition was staged, set to host three games.

The World Cup has already been expanded from 32 to 48 teams for next year’s edition in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

A spokesman for the world football federation said: “A proposal to analyse a 64-team FIFA World Cup to celebrate the centenary of the FIFA World Cup in 2030 was spontaneously raised by a FIFA Council member in the ‘miscellaneous’ agenda item near the end of the FIFA Council meeting held on March 5.

“The idea was acknowledged as FIFA has a duty to analyse any proposal from one of its Council members.”

The proposal reportedly came from Uruguayan Ignacio Alonso and was described as “interesting” by FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

Expansion would challenge the concept of qualifying competitions, which generate important revenue for many countries. Opposition is likely to match that If 64 teams go through, it would render many of those qualifiers virtually meaningless and less attractive to broadcasters and fans.

That is likely to provoke strong opposition in many quarters, similar to that when Infantino previously supported a Saudi Arabian proposal for the World Cup to be held every two years instead of every four.

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