2030 World Cup: South America calls for expanded 64-team tournament
The idea was first proposed by Uruguayan football official Ignacio Alonso at a FIFA Council meeting last month, before UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin dismissed the proposal as a 'bad idea'.
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The 2030 World Cup will be the tournament's centenary edition, with the first competition having been held in Uruguay in 1930.
1930 hosts Uruguay, 2022 winners Argentina and Paraguay — the home of CONMEBOL's offices — are currently scheduled to host one match each at the start of the 2030 tournament, with the remaining 101 games in the 48-team tournament split between Morocco, Portugal and Spain.
'We are convinced that the centennial celebration will be unique, because 100 years only happen once,' Dominguez said at the CONMEBOL Congress on Thursday.
'And that's why we are proposing, for the only time, to hold this anniversary with 64 teams, on three continents simultaneously. So that all countries have the opportunity to live a global experience, and so that no one on this planet is left out of this celebration which, even though it's played everywhere, is our party.'
FIFA told the New York Times in March that the 64-team proposal 'was spontaneously raised by a FIFA Council member in the 'miscellaneous' agenda item near the end' of their meeting.
The 2026 World Cup, to be held across the United States, Mexico and Canada, will be the first 48-team edition of the tournament, an increase from the 32-team format than ran from 1998 to 2022.
Seven of CONMEBOL's 10 nations are guaranteed spots in a 48-team tournament, with 16 spaces available for UEFA's 55 member nations.
Last month, European football's governing body's president Ceferin said of the idea of a 64-team competition: 'I think it's a bad idea — it's not a good idea for the World Cup itself and it's not a good idea for our qualifiers as well.'
(YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images)
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