FIFA president Gianni Infantino proposes 48-team World Cup

FIFA is considering expanding the World Cup to 48 teams and will make a decision by 2017, president Gianni Infantino has confirmed.

However, he suggested that 16 of those teams would go home after just one knockout match, and the remainder of the tournament would be played, as now, with a 32-team group stage, followed by a knockout phase.

Infantino, speaking during an event at Bogota’s Sergio Arboleda university, said a final decision would be taken by the FIFA Council in January.

“These are ideas to find the best solution, we will debate them this month and we will decide everything by 2017,” Infantino was quoted as saying. “They are ideas which we put forward to see which one is the best.”

Infantino said his suggestion was to have a preliminary knockout round involving 32 teams played in the host country, with the 16 winners reaching the group stage. A further 16 seeded teams would get a bye into the group stage, he said.