Back to the United States Newsfeed

A 48 team World Cup calls for an overhaul of FIFA rankings and draw process

The powers that be at FIFA voted to expand our beloved World Cup to 48 teams in 2026. The group stage will now consist of 16 groups with 3 teams each resulting in a 32 team knockout stage. The impacts of this change are many and will be analyzed over the course of the next few years. But one change that may have the biggest effect is the expansion from 8 groups to 16 because the importance of the draw and the embarrassingly bad FIFA rankings will be more pronounced. There's more likely to be a greater disparity in the quality of the groups which will leave the outcome of the tournament more to luck than ever before.