Infantino set to prevail on World Cup

Fifa president Gianni Infantino is set to get his way on expanding the World Cup to 48 teams in 2026, a move which will boost his chances of reelection in 2019.

A vote to expand world football’s premier event by 16 teams is second on the agenda at today’s meeting of the Fifa Council in Zurich, with one insider saying it is a “fait accompli”.

Increasing the number of teams at the World Cup was one of Infantino’s manifesto pledges last year, although his original idea was to follow predecessor Sepp Blatter’s preference for 40 teams.

But the two 40-team formats proposed by Fifa’s experts – eight groups of five or ten groups of four, both followed by a 16-team knockout – have failed to attract much support for a variety of reasons.

This led Infantino to leap to 48 teams, with his first idea being a one-off playoff involving 32 teams to decide who should join 16 seeded teams in the current eight-groups-of-four format.

That idea, however, was also panned, as it stretched the tournament beyond its current 32 days and meant 16 teams would be travelling to an event for just one match.

Infantino appears to have got it right, though, with his fourth attempt – 16 groups of three, followed by a 32-team knockout.

This increases the number of games from 64 to 80 but the tournament stays at 32 days, with the semi-finalists playing seven games (including the third-place play-off), which is the same number as now.