World stage for everyone? The 64-team World Cup and the question of who owns football’s biggest tournament

World stage for everyone? The 64-team World Cup and the question of who owns football’s biggest tournament Stoppage time in Chillán, 97th minute. Ñublense throw everything forward, one last shot, and the goalkeeper stretches across to his left. Age: 40. Status: a nobody in May 2026, more than 27 million Instagram followers by July. A phenomenon. His name: Josimar Dias. Who? Vozinha! The World Cup effect in human form. That dive to his left secured Colo-Colo a 2–1 win and the Chilean title. That was last Sunday. Four months earlier, hardly anyone outside Cape Verde knew his name. Then came the World Cup summer and a night in Miami when the tiny island nation pushed holders Argentina to the brink. So close that even Lionel Messi looked to the heavens, as if pleading for help. 3–2 after extra time. Cape Verde out. Football history, one unforgettable story richer. And a goalkeeper whose career was rewritten in 120 minutes. These are the stories fans will be telling for generations. The ones that made football the most important of life’s unimportant things, and keep renewing it. And, in a way, the breeding ground for an idea many would like to bury as quickly as possible: a supersized World Cup with 64 teams. Shelved, but not forgotten The Times recently reported that FIFA has put those plans on ice for now. Until then, the debate had been running red hot. Perhaps this international break comes at just the right moment to revisit the question without the froth. Europe has the Nations League, African sides are battling for AFCON places, and South America and Asia are playing friendlies. Right now, more national teams around the globe are out on the pitch, many who know the World Cup only from the TV screen, rather than have ever played in one. Should it stay that way? South America has a clear answer. The day after the 2026 final, CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez posted on X: “Next time, the World Cup is coming home.” The 2030 tournament, he wrote, was “a great opportunity for football to celebrate the centenary of the World Cup with a 64-team competition.” A statement that landed like a tectonic shift on planet football. Domínguez added that the expansion to 48 teams had already shown “that greater participation creates more opportunities, drives the development of football and turns the World Cup into a truly global celebration.” The 48-team verdict: light and shade Whether that is rhetoric or prophecy can be measured in numbers, and they don’t tell a one-sided story. On one hand, there was a goal-fest: 215 goals in the group stage, an average of 2.99 per game, the highest at any World Cup since the 1950s, as news agency AFP calculated. On the other, there is a BBC analysis: in 2022 only five group games were won by three goals or more; in 2026 there were 18. Four teams had already won their group before the final matchday. More spectacle, but also more one-way traffic. More TikTok than cinema. African teams in particular handed expansion supporters some powerful arguments. Nine of the ten African sides reached the knockout rounds. The previous record was two. A continent that had to make do with five places for decades proved it deserves more. Yet the picture isn’t entirely clean: four of those nine only went through as best third-placed teams. And from Asia, only Japan and Australia made it to the knockouts. Who would have been there in 2026 Lay a potential 64-team template over the tournament in Mexico, Canada and the USA, and the list quickly fills up with big names. Italy, for one, missed a third straight World Cup. Leonardo Spinazzola afterwards spoke of a blow “for all the kids who have never seen Italy at a World Cup.” And yet the Azzurri came from behind to beat France 3–1 at San Siro in the Nations League this week. Denmark and Poland also fell in their play-off finals. In Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon were missing. There is no question about the quality of these teams, and any World Cup would be better for having them. Then there is Georgia, and with it Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, one of the most thrilling attackers in the modern game, still without a single minute of World Cup football. He joins George Best and Ryan Giggs in a familiar club: world class, but never on the world stage. The underrated argument: the format Things get interesting when you look at the structure. With 16 groups of four, only the top two would advance, and the eventual champions would play eight games, exactly as many as in 2026. The calculator-at-the-ready drama over the best third-placed sides would disappear. This summer showed how absurd that can get: Senegal reached the knockouts with just three points. No more waiting days for results elsewhere, no more suspicion of collusion on the final matchday. Paradoxical, but true: in 2026, two-thirds of all teams went through; with 64, it would be only half. The bigger World Cup would have the tougher group stage. The maths seems clear: fewer free passes, more jeopardy, higher stakes. The other side: workload, quality, planet The critics aren’t convinced, and their arguments carry real weight. The most prominent voice is arguably the man the German FA appointed as national coach this summer. Asked about expanding the field, Jürgen Klopp told The Athletic: “Honestly, I just saw it and thought: oh no, I’m not getting involved in that.” Speaking to CBS Sports, he went further, saying of the governing bodies: “They cannot get enough.” His concern is grounded in data. According to an analysis of player data from the players’ union FIFPRO, the number of matches played per season by the three most-used outfield players has risen from 70 to 73, against a recommended maximum of 55. The picture isn’t undisputed: the CIES sports research institute found no clear evidence of an increase in workload since the 2000s. But at the top, the air is thin, and 128 World Cup matches instead of 104 wouldn’t make it any easier to breathe. Then there are logistics and climate: 2030 will already be the first World Cup played across six countries on three continents. Every extra team means more flights, more travel, more emissions. Can that really be justified in the name of football? The question behind the question In the end, this is less about a number than a principle. Should the World Cup remain an exclusive summit for the very best, or a celebration the whole world can take part in? The 48-team edition didn’t settle every doubt, but it did disprove the loudest fears. And it showed that the answer lies somewhere between the limits of the human body and Vozinha’s fairytale career. Perhaps somewhere in Cape Verde, a teenager watched in July as a goalkeeper from his homeland drove Messi to despair. Perhaps by 2030 he’ll be knocking on the national team’s door himself. Perhaps one day he’ll be the best player in the world. How wide that door should be left open is at least worth an open debate. Especially now, with tempers cooled and no one under pressure to decide.