Looking forward to the 2026 World Cup, the United States, Canada and Mexico will jointly host the competition system and plan to expand 16 national teams
2022-12-22 13:40With the tight schedule of the 2022 Qatar World Cup coming to a successful conclusion, FIFA (FIFA) is currently ambitiously preparing to organize a larger World Cup.
The 2026 World Cup will be the 23rd FIFA World Cup, and it will also be the first World Cup event jointly hosted by three host countries, namely the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Plan to expand to 48 teams
The participation of the three host countries will undoubtedly be a large-scale World Cup event, so Gianni Infantino, the chairman of the National Football Federation, plans to expand to 48 teams to participate in the World Cup in the next session, and there will be more than 100 games on the schedule .
In fact, 32 teams have been used since 1998. After Infantino took over in 2016, he aimed to expand the scale of the World Cup. Now he has added 16 teams for a total of 48 teams. This is twice the number of teams participating in the previous World Cup hosted by Mexico and the United States.
However, the 48-team number also benefits Asian and African countries with larger populations who do not have the opportunity to participate. Because under the new competition system, the seats in Asia and Africa will increase. Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria were eliminated from the World Cup qualifiers and could not qualify for the World Cup.
The number of seats in Europe will also increase to 16. In addition, the Central North American and Caribbean Football Association (CONCACAF) will also get another 3 qualifying places, a total of 6 teams.
Reset the number of teams in the group stage
Originally, FIFA originally formulated 16 groups of 3 teams in each group to compete in the group stage. In the end, the top 2 teams in each group will have a total of 32 teams participating in the knockout stage of the top 16. However, after the World Cup in Qatar, Infantino said that he would re-examine the group stage system of 3 teams in each group.
However, if the number of teams participating in the 2026 World Cup is expanded to 48 teams, it is expected that the group competition system will be divided into 12 groups with 4 teams in each group. The teams will start the knockout round of 18.
It is worth mentioning that the number of games and stadiums also need to be expanded to 104 games and 16 stadiums. The U.S. will have 11 stadiums, Mexico will have three and Canada will have two. Obviously, the United States, which has more stadiums, will host most of the games, including the knockout rounds. It remains to be seen how positive or negative the repercussions of Infantino's expanded World Cup plans will be.
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