FIFA boss wants World Cup to go from 32 to 48 teams

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.

"These are ideas to find the best solution," he said. "We will debate them this month and we will decide everything by 2017."

Infantino took charge of world football's governing body in February.

One of his election promises was to expand the World Cup to 40 teams.

But his idea now is that 32 teams take part in a preliminary knockout round in the host country, with the winners joining 16 seeded teams in the group stages.

"It means we continue with a normal World Cup for 32 teams, but 48 teams go to the party," said Infantino, who replaced Sepp Blatter.

"Fifa's idea is to develop football in the whole world. The World Cup is the biggest event there is. It's more than a competition, it's a social event."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37547545

I quite like the idea of more teams going but here's my concern with this format.

You've got 16 teams who will know they're getting 3 games in the groups.  While you have 32 who could be going for just one game with a huge amount of pressure on that game.

At least the 32 teams who go now can be prepared for 3 games.

Seems to me it is just making it a little bit easier for the top 16 teams - a game less - a very high-pressure game less.

They love making things complicated don't they? There's nothing wrong with the current format, it rewards teams that have done well and excludes teams that haven't performed well enough.

UEFA and FIFA are doing my head in at the moment with their tournament rule changes. That whole fiasco at the Euro's about 3rd placed teams going through was a complete farce and made things more complicated than they should have been IMO. There was never anything wrong about the top 2 qualifying and then 1st vs 2nd throughout the following knockout round. Instead we had things like 1st vs 3rd, 2nd vs 3rd, 2nd vs 2nd, 1st vs 1st or whatever.

Who wants to watch the likes of Turmenistan v Belize!

If they are going to add 8 games , they might as well add 8 more and make it 8 groups of 6.

Did they see the horrible Euro format and decide they can F**k things up too?

If they are going to add 8 games , they might as well add 8 more and make it 8 groups of 6.

Currently 64 games with 8 groups of 4 to the final. (48 group games).

Making it 8 groups of 6 would make it 136 games (120 group games).