A month after abandoning his $20bn plan to sell a stake in the World Cup to private investors, FIFA president Gianni Infantino is being cast as a man looking for a different route back to a majority of FIFA’s 211 members: one that would hand more of them a guaranteed seat at football’s biggest event.

A FIFA-commissioned independent analysis of expanding the men’s tournament from 48 to 64 teams from the 2030 edition is due on 11 September, after the internal decision to launch the review was taken on 14 August. The 2030 tournament, already split across Morocco, Portugal and Spain with three centenary matches in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, would be reshaped again if FIFA’s Council accepts the recommendation.

That timetable is not moving in isolation. On 18 November, the window closes for anyone hoping to stand against Infantino at the 77th FIFA Congress in Rabat on 18 March 2027, where a candidate needs 106 of 211 votes to win.

The regions Infantino cannot afford to lose

The revolt against him has drawn its energy from the confederations whose members would benefit least, or not at all, from more slots. UEFA, the AFC and CONCACAF are considering a formal no-confidence vote, and the English FA, Serbia, Sweden and Wales have withdrawn their public backing since the summer.

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Africa, most of South America and a bloc of Arab associations have stayed with him. CAF president Patrice Motsepe has said Infantino retains the continent’s support, and CONMEBOL has issued a statement rejecting any attempt to remove him without a full vote of all 211 members. It is precisely those regions, plus a widened Asian field, that a 64-team World Cup would most directly reward with new places.

That is the political reading offered by Forbes, which reported on 11 August that Infantino may back the expansion partly to shore up votes from Africa, Asia and CONCACAF ahead of March.

“If you don’t give smaller countries a chance to participate in the World Cup, they’ll lack the incentive to keep improving,” Infantino said in July, calling the idea of a 64-team format “definitely something to look into.”

The idea was CONMEBOL’s before it was Infantino’s

The 64-team format did not originate in the FIFA president’s office. It was proposed by CONMEBOL to mark the 2030 centenary of the first World Cup, held in Uruguay, and formally advanced by its president Alejandro Domínguez. Infantino himself only publicly leaned into the idea in July, after the 48-team tournament had played out in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

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Opposition remains loud. UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin has called a further expansion “a bad idea”, and AFC president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa said publicly that he does not agree with it. Confederations do not control how their members vote, though; each of FIFA’s 211 associations casts its own ballot, and support for Infantino has repeatedly cut across confederation lines through the summer.

The independent review lands first

The 11 September delivery date arrives more than two months before the November nomination deadline. If the review’s conclusions are used to open the door to more slots for Africa, Asia and CONCACAF, they will do so at the point where potential challengers such as CONCACAF president Victor Montagliani and Qatar Sports Investments chairman Nasser al-Khelaïfi are still weighing whether to run.

No candidate other than Infantino has so far declared for the March vote.

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