Oman and Kuwait are being lined up as co-hosts alongside Qatar for 2022 tournament, which could feature 48 teams
Monday 18 March 2019 11:12, UK
It is becoming increasingly likely that the 2022 World Cup will contain 48 teams, which would mean the need for Qatar to seek a neighbouring country to help host the tournament.
FIFA members have already agreed to expand the global tournament to 48 teams from 2026, but president Gianni Infantino wants to bring the change forward to 2022.
Is the World Cup meant to be an elite competition or is it meant to be an expanded festival of football?
The Council of world football's governing body has now agreed to look at the possibility of increasing the size of the next World Cup to 48 sides through the addition of one more host.
A final decision will not be made until a full meeting of the FIFA Congress in Paris in June, but what did the Sunday Supplement panel make of the possible change?
I'm not a fan, if I'm being honest. I think if Qatar were given the rights to this World Cup, they need to be hosting it.
I know the next World Cup [in USA, Canada and Mexico in 2026] is going to be a joint World Cup, but you've got to think about logistical aspects of it, for journalists as well as for fans, the amount they're going to have to travel, and the number of games.
Clearly we love the World Cup, but I was in Russia last year for five weeks, and there wasn't a day that I wasn't at a game up until the knockout rounds. When one game finished, another one started, so catching up was mental.
Increasing it to 48 teams would logistically be tough, but clearly this is about money. Drumming up interest in other countries, but it's about making more money, and that's what FIFA are prioritising here.
I would say there would be an issue of quality. Qualifying for a World Cup is a privilege, but it's also hard. A World Cup should be for the elite nations who have earned the right to be there. This would clearly dilute that to a certain degree.
I don't agree with it, and you can't even begin to try to get your head around the politics at FIFA. [Gianni] Infantino is clearly thinking ahead and it's all about self-preservation and getting re-elected, trying to curry favour and gain votes from other nations.
FIFA have got a choice. Is the World Cup meant to be an elite competition, or is it meant to be an expanded festival of football? You can make a case for making it a 48-team or a 64-team World Cup in that it makes it more of a wider event. But you can't make that case at all for Qatar 2022, which is a tournament taking place in a country the size of Kent.
It's already taking place in November in the football season. There are already concerns about crunching all the games into that short period and it's already condensed. I think it's absolute madness to try to introduce that for 2022.
You can make a case for doing it in 2026. I don't mind the idea of a tournament being spread out as it will be in Euro 2020, as long as it considers fans, so that they're not going from Lisbon to Baku to Copenhagen for games in the same group. If it's regionalised, I think that's quite sensible. I don't think it's sensible to have a tournament in the first place, for many reasons.
