32-Team Club World Cup And Other Changes Announced By Infantino

The president of Fifa had a press conference last Friday morning where he aired certain changes surprising announcements for the future, amongst which is 32-team club World cup after every four years. The 2023 edition will be hosted by Morocco.

3.27 million spectators attended matches in Qatar. Gianni Infantino talked about “the best World Cup ever» and he s delighted with major advances such as the presence of teams from all continents who qualified for the round of 16, but also the refereeing of Stéphanie Frappart, first woman to officiate at a World Cup game. “A huge success on all aspects, the behavior of the supporters, the friendly and joyful atmosphere, the fact that we brought together these supporters from all countries in an Arab country. We saw very competitive matches, surprises, extraordinary goals. The fact of having played in November and December rather than at the end of the season had an impact on the quality of the matches“, he declared at a press conference.

On arbitration and the duration of additional time : “Added time was longer than usual. A match lasts 90 minutes but there are a lot of stoppages, on average ten minutes of additional time per match. This means that a match lasts 59 minutes in regular time.»

The next editions of the World Cup : The host country of the 2030 World Cup will be announced during 2024. As for the format of the next edition, organized in 2026 in North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) with 48 nations, it has not yet been announced. Nothing is decided between 12 groups of 4 teams and 16 groups of 3.

The creation of a new competition, a 32-team Club World Cup : The first edition will take place in 2025. “It has been decided that there will be a 32-team Club World Cup every four years. The first edition will take place in the summer of 2025, in this slot where, in the past, there was the Confederations Cup. It will obviously take a little longer. The best teams in the world will participate. All the details are going to be worked out in the next few weeks, in consultation with everyone. Today the FIFA Council took the decision in principle to organize this competition.»

The next Club World Cup (old format, editor’s note) : It will take place in Morocco in 2023. The country had already hosted this competition in 2014.

On the death of workers : “Each deceased person is too many. This is a tragedy for the families, for us. But the figures mentioned are different from reality. Three people died in the stadium construction. The 300 or 400 deceased people announced are on old constructions, started for several years, in particular since 2014. We must be precise about the figures given and the way in which we mention them.