The reporter reported coldly How to make the 2030 Centennial World Cup an unprecedented football event? Last year's FIFA president's answer was 48 teams and six countries from three continents. But now, Infantino's answer may be 64 teams participating, an unprecedented World Cup!

Last Wednesday, the president of the Uruguayan Football Federation, Marcos Alonso, suddenly threw out a proposal for 64 teams to participate in the 2030 World Cup, and FIFA said that it would carefully analyze the feasibility of the proposal. Next, it is important not only whether the proposal can be implemented, but also how the world has become accustomed to Infantino's "crazy mind" and "boundless ambition".

Team 64 proposes to "come prepared"

The FIFA Executive Committee on March 5, 2025, because the president of the Uruguayan Football Federation, Alonso, "suddenly made a difficulty", and his proposal could go down in the history of world football. Towards the end of the videoconference-style Executive Committee, Alonso took out a statement in English and suddenly proposed that the 2030 World Cup be expanded to 64 teams to better celebrate the centenary of the World Cup. The New York Times revealed that the reaction of other delegates at the meeting was "unanimous shock and silence."

FIFA President Gianni Infantino showed interest in the proposal, which was also the source of FIFA's subsequent statement that it would "analyse the proposal in depth", according to the four participants. Three other participants said FIFA's decision was likely to be made "with both sporting interests in mind, as well as economic and political interests".

Alonso did not speak in his native Spanish, but in English, which the participants could understand. The 64-team World Cup proposal will be considered at the FIFA Executive Board in the second quarter of 2026. This means that FIFA has more than a year to put this "crazy" expansion plan on the ground through a lot of behind-the-scenes work. Like Infantino's previous efforts to host the 2030 and 2034 men's World Cups, the 64-team proposal could be a preview of Infantino's "crazy plan" already in action.

Uruguay's newspaper El País claims that Alonso's proposal has at least the support of all members of the South American Football Confederation. Because the 64-team plan will allow the three South American countries that originally hosted only one game each, to host more games. In the 48-team World Cup, the 10 teams in the South American zone originally had 6 direct qualifiers and 1 play-off place. After the expansion of 64 teams, there will be at least 8 direct qualifiers, 1 play-off place, and maybe even all of them will qualify, which will make the South American World Cup qualifiers useless or even canceled.

The Argentine newspaper "El Nacional" believes that the "64 team proposal" is Infantino's "compensation" for the Centennial World Cup that should have been held in South America after being forcibly deprived of the right to host. Uruguay and Argentina were the first to propose bids for the 2030 World Cup, focusing on the sentimental concept of "going home for the World Cup in the past century". However, just as Blatter and Beckenbauer forcibly allowed Japan and South Korea to co-host the 2002 World Cup, Infantino forcibly "kneaded" Spain-Portugal, Morocco, Uruguay-Argentina-Paraguay into one host on the grounds that the basic conditions of South American countries were not enough to host the 48-team World Cup.

The three South American countries were given the right to host only three tournaments, as well as a symbolic bid to host the opening ceremony of the centennial World Cup and related celebrations. If the 64-team expansion plan is approved, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay will each host at least one group to generate more revenue. Moreover, apart from UEFA, the other continental football confederations have at least no objection to being able to get more World Cup places, at least at the public level.

Infantino's most ambitious plan

Previously, Infantino was inspired by the concept of "all-European hosting" of UEFA Euro 2020, and urged the two sides to jointly host the bid of the three South American countries and the European Iberian combination when the bids were evenly matched and deadlocked, and even personally lobbied Morocco, which bid alone, to join, forming an unprecedented grand occasion of six countries on three continents. Infantino's "unbridled" way of thinking was thus encouraged by reality.

The British, American and Spanish media generally believe that the sudden attack of Alonso, the president of the Uruguayan Football Federation, was instructed by Infantino. Because the president of FIFA has just proposed: to introduce a "Super Bowl"-style theatrical performance at halftime in the 2026 World Cup final, and even to extend the halftime for this. So in order to expand the influence of the World Cup and make the 2030 Centennial World Cup an unprecedented global event, the participation of 64 teams is absolutely reasonable and possible for Infantino.

The expansion of the 2030 World Cup is in line with Infantino's long-standing philosophy: to give more teams the opportunity to participate in the World Cup, so as to stimulate the enthusiasm of more developing football countries. The World Cup is no longer an elite event dominated almost exclusively by Europe and South America in the past, but a universal event that can cover the whole world. Previously, Infantino had inherited Blatter's idea and tried to change the World Cup from quadrennial to biennial, but the feedback from the committee responsible for the feasibility assessment was that there was no possibility of landing. Therefore, on the basis of maintaining a four-year cycle, increasing the number of teams participating in the World Cup has become another option.

The general reaction in world football to the 64-team proposal for the 2030 World Cup has been to watch cautiously, rather than simply dismissing it as an overly unrealistic fantasy. Because many previous precedents have proved that Infantino would release "teasers" through the media before each of his shocking reforms, and these "teasers" almost eventually became reality.