FIFA plans for 64-team WC despite backlash
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- FIFA launched a 15-day consultation on expanding the men's World Cup to 64 teams starting with the 2030 edition, targeting a decision by Aug. 14.
- Gianni Infantino's $20 billion sell-off plan (the FIFA Forward Enterprise) appears to be in ruins after UEFA, Concacaf, and the AFC condemned and rejected the proposal.
- Carlos Cordeiro, Infantino's senior adviser, resigned Friday and called the FFE proposal "a bad deal for football."
- Thrive Eternal, founded by Joshua Kushner (brother of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner), is earmarked to lead the private-investor group under the FFE.
- The AFC called for an "urgent review" of FIFA's governance, saying major stakeholders were again "confronted with significant initiatives after the direction of travel appears to have already been determined."
- UEFA intends to boycott FIFA competitions until the FFE is scrapped, and warned that bigger, more frequent tournaments were a key concern if private equity influenced their running.
- A 64-team expansion had previously been rejected privately by senior FIFA figures before the current consultation was launched.
Why it matters: The 15-day consultation window for a format change of this scale — launched while confederations revolt and Infantino's senior adviser resigns — means the Sept. 11 sell-off deadline may pass without the legitimacy he needs from the 211 member associations. UEFA's threatened boycott of FIFA competitions would fracture the international calendar, and the Kushner-linked Thrive Eternal lead-investor role gives regional bodies a politically charged target alongside the commercial one.
