MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Conmebol presses FIFA for a 64-team 2030 World Cup and more matches in South America

The proposal, originally presented by Uruguay's Ignacio Alonso to the FIFA Council in March 2025 and taken up by Domínguez, faces strong opposition

The South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) has stepped up its pressure on FIFA for the 2030 World Cup to be played with 64 teams, which would allow Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay to host more matches than currently planned. A day after the 2026 World Cup final, won by Spain, the body's president, Alejandro Domínguez, treated the format as all but settled in a message on the social network X: “In 2030 the World Cup is coming to Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay,” he wrote, proposing to mark the centenary “with a 64-team competition.”

FIFA has not confirmed the expansion. Its president, Gianni Infantino, said the matter “will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees” once the 2026 tournament — the first with 48 teams, up from 32 in previous editions — concludes. A 64-team World Cup would mean 128 matches, double the format in place between 1998 and 2022. The final decision rests with the FIFA Council, made up of representatives of the six confederations.

The proposal, originally presented by Uruguay's Ignacio Alonso to the FIFA Council in March 2025 and taken up by Domínguez, faces strong opposition. The presidents of UEFA, Aleksander Čeferin, of Concacaf, Victor Montagliani, and of the Asian confederation, Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, came out against it. Čeferin called it “a bad idea,” and critics warn that a tournament of that size would weaken the quality of play, devalue the qualifiers, and overload the calendar. The 2030 World Cup will already be the most sprawling in history, split among six countries across three continents: the opening matches will be played in South America, marking the centenary of the tournament born in Montevideo in 1930, and the rest in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco.

For South America, the expansion carries a strong sporting incentive: it would guarantee direct qualification for all ten Conmebol nations, including Venezuela, the only one never to have played a World Cup. In Uruguay, the economic dimension is central. According to the weekly Búsqueda, Yamandú Orsi's government told the Uruguayan Football Association that the viability of public investment and possible international financing lines depends on the Centenario Stadium hosting more than one match.

Domínguez has made the demand a fixture of his public appearances. At Conmebol's congress in Quito in April, he placed a captain's armband on Infantino and invoked the centenary to request an exceptional 64-team format, in a staged gesture he closed by announcing South American backing for Infantino's reelection in 2027. The FIFA president, who has promoted larger tournaments during his tenure, initially supported the idea but later declined to comment.