The 2026 World Cup is still wrapping up, and already the fight over 2030 is getting loud.
The next World Cup lands in 2030, and it’s unlike anything football has done before. Three continents. Six host countries. And a live argument, coming straight from FIFA president Gianni Infantino this week, about whether the tournament should jump from 48 teams to 64. Nothing is confirmed on the team count yet. Everything else, though, is locked in.
Who Is Actually Hosting the 2030 World Cup
Morocco, Portugal and Spain will run the tournament proper. FIFA confirmed it on 11 December 2024, at an Extraordinary Congress where the Spain-Portugal-Morocco bid was the only one on the table and got waved through by acclamation. The same session handed Saudi Arabia the 2034 tournament.
For Morocco, this is a big deal after five failed bids stretching back to 1994. For Portugal, it’s the country’s first time ever hosting. For Spain, it’s a return after 48 years away, the last time was 1982.
Then there’s the part that makes 2030 genuinely strange: Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay will each stage one match. Not a full slate of games, just one opening fixture apiece, and it’s happening to mark the tournament’s 100th birthday. The very first World Cup was played in Uruguay in 1930, and Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 in the final at Montevideo’s Estadio Centenario. That same stadium reopens the 2030 tournament before anyone even boards a flight to Africa or Europe.
Argentina hosts its match at the Estadio Monumental, River Plate’s home ground, the first World Cup game on Argentine soil since the country won it all in 1978. Paraguay gets a game at the Estadio Osvaldo Domínguez Dibb in Asunción, home turf for CONMEBOL, South America’s governing body.
Put it together and you get six countries, three continents, and a tournament that runs a full 44 days, the longest in World Cup history, up from 39 days in 2026, simply because of how far apart everything is.
The Stadiums: Still Being Finalised
Roughly 20 to 23 venues are in play across the three main hosts, spread over 17 to 18 cities. Spain originally proposed 11 stadiums, including the Santiago Bernabéu, Spotify Camp Nou, the Metropolitano, San Mamés in Bilbao, and La Cartuja in Seville. That list hasn’t stayed static, though.
Málaga pulled out in July 2025 over renovation issues with Estadio La Rosaleda. A Coruña followed in March 2026, with mayor Inés Rey citing hosting costs. Valencia’s Nou Mestalla and Vigo’s Balaidos have both been floated as replacements, and a final decision on Spain’s host cities isn’t expected until late 2026.
Morocco’s list includes the Ibn Batouta Stadium in Tangier, and the one everyone’s talking about: the Grand Stade Hassan II near Casablanca. It’s still under construction, planned for 115,000 seats, and if it’s finished as designed, it becomes the largest football stadium on the planet, and a strong candidate to host the final itself. Nothing on the final venue has been announced yet.
So, Will There Be 64 Teams?
This is the part actually making news this week.
Speaking to Swiss outlet Bluewin, Infantino said a 64-team World Cup is “definitely an issue that will be examined and discussed in the relevant committees” once the current 48-team tournament wraps up. His reasoning: smaller footballing nations deserve a shot, and this year’s expanded format already proved they can compete. He pointed out that nine of Africa’s ten qualified teams reached the knockout stage in 2026, up from just five African sides at Qatar 2022.
The push for 64 teams didn’t come from FIFA, though. It came from South America. CONMEBOL president Alejandro Domínguez first floated the idea through a Uruguayan federation delegate back in March 2025, arguing that a centenary tournament, one that happens once every hundred years — deserves to be bigger and more inclusive. In September 2025, Domínguez sat down with Infantino in New York, alongside the presidents of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, to push the proposal directly.
There’s an obvious motive buried in there: expanding to 64 teams would likely guarantee a spot for every one of CONMEBOL’s ten member nations, including Venezuela, the only South American country that’s never qualified for a World Cup.
Not everyone’s on board. UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin called the whole idea “a bad idea” the moment it surfaced, warning it would devalue European qualifying. The Asian Football Confederation’s Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa has rejected it too, and made a sharper point: once you open the door to 64, what stops someone demanding 132 next?
There’s already a rough blueprint for how 64 teams could work without blowing up the format completely, advancing the top two from each group straight into an expanded knockout stage. But that’s a proposal, not a plan. Nothing gets decided until FIFA’s committees actually sit down after this World Cup ends, and even then it needs sign-off from FIFA’s governing bodies before it’s real.
For now, the safest assumption is that 2030 sticks with 48 teams, same as 2026. Anyone telling you 64 is locked in in is getting ahead of the story.
What Else Is Unresolved
A few things about 2030 are still open questions worth watching:
- The final’s location hasn’t been decided. Official host sites need FIFA sign-off by the December 2026 deadline, but the final itself could be confirmed later than that.
- Western Sahara mapping has already caused friction. The joint bid document showed Western Sahara as Moroccan territory, which FIFA’s evaluation report left out. In February 2025, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that jerseys can’t display a map of Morocco including Western Sahara.
- Domestic unrest in Morocco flared up in late September 2025, with youth-led protests under the banner Gen Z 212 criticising government spending on sports infrastructure, including 2030 World Cup prep, while healthcare and education systems struggle.
Quick Answers
Where is the 2030 World Cup being held?
Mainly in Morocco, Portugal and Spain, with one additional opening match each in Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay to mark the tournament’s centenary.
When does it start?
8 June 2030, running through 21 July 2030.
How many teams will play?
48, under the current format, the same as 2026. FIFA has said it will examine a 64-team expansion, but no decision has been made.
Has this ever happened before a World Cup across six countries?
No. It’s the first World Cup held across three continents and the first time hosting has been split this way.
The 2026 tournament wraps up in the coming weeks. Once it does, the real conversation about what 2030 actually looks like, team count included, finally starts.
