FIFA To decide in January on whether World Cup finals go to 40 or 48 teams

FIFA will decide in January whether the now-certain expansion of the World Cup finals in 2026 will take it from 32 teams to 40 or 48 as the headline issue of a major strategic and structural overhaul.
Signals of what critics will consider a victory for quantity over quality came from president Gianni Infantino in Zurich today after the first half of a two-day meeting of the newly-expanded FIFA Council.

Infantino said: “The first extra large council meeting was a very positive, lively meeting with a lot of discussion and debate which is what we want to foster and, with the new members who are looking to find their places, it has been really positive.”

As for the future of the World Cup: “This is still a work in progress and decisions will be taken in the next council meeting in January. For the time being we are moving forward with the analysis