Football’s biggest event could be about to get even bigger.
Newly elected Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s promise of a 40-team World Cup presumably helped him across the line in last week’s election, but now he’s in power the Swiss seems determined to follow through on his pledge.
The former Uefa general secretary has given an interview on Fifa’s YouTube page where he discusses several topics, including women’s football, making the governance of the game less political and the serious testing of video replay.
But it’s Infantino’s words on the future of the World Cup that are of most interest, as he states that “it’s not a secret that I believe in increasing the teams for the World Cup, 40 teams, eight more teams, but this means more representation”.
“Forty teams is only 19 per cent of the Fifa membership, so it’s not so much compare with the continental tournaments, which are between 30 and 100 per cent. We can give eight more countries the possibility to participate, but many more teams get the possibility to dream of participating.”
Sounds good, and a bigger World Cup would certainly do Ireland’s chances of qualifying no harm, but is that a price worth paying for further bloating the tournament and lowering the overall standard, not to mention limiting the number of countries capable of hosting?
