2026 World Cup Will Have Four-Team Groups and 24 More Games

The total of 104 World Cup matches will be a significant increase from previous plans that had called for 80 games, and 40 more than last year’s tournament in Qatar, which featured 32 teams. Montagliani said the footprint of the event would not be larger than the World Cups in 2014 and 2018, the last to be staged using the event’s traditional June-July calendar.

The change will also force organizers to clear more dates in the 16 cities they have chosen to host the World Cup, a potentially difficult dance for stadium officials juggling a summer of sports, concerts and other events. Montagliani suggested there would be discussions to see how and where the additional games would be played, and he refused to rule out adding a host.

The 2026 tournament — hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada — will be the first World Cup with 48 teams, up from the 32 nations that have competed since 1998.

Early discussions had centered on splitting the teams into 16 groups of three. But after the nail-biting finish to the group stage in Qatar last year, and with officials concerned about a situation in which three-team groups could be manipulated and teams would be eliminated after only two games, FIFA revisited the issue.

The heads of soccer’s six confederations met with FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, on Monday night, and none raised any objection to the proposed format. The formal confirmation came Tuesday, at a meeting of FIFA’s 36-member governing council, which typically rubber-stamps proposals agreed upon by the six regional heads.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/14/sports/soccer/2026-world-cup-format.html