The FIFA World Cup is ongoing currently and this will be the last time that it will be a 32 team event in the World Cup finals and from 2026 it will be a 48 team event because FIFA wants to give more nations a chance to play the biggest tournament in the world and this they extended it by 16 teams from the best event. There have been a lot of opinions about it and we are here to give arguments for both sides.
What I will do in this article is to give the pros and cons for both a 32 team tournament and a 48 team tournament where we will go through the advantages and the disadvantages of having either version of the World Cup. The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sporting tournament in the world and so I welcome all football fans to give their opinion as well.
32 Team World Cup
A 32 team World Cup has been the tradition that has been going on for decades and it has served FIFA very well and the quality of the matches are great. The group stages of this World Cup were the best seen in a long time. So, let’s now see the pros and cons for having a 32 team World Cup
Pros
A 32 Team World Cup allows for the matches to be more competitive and the quality of teams is fairly even so the matches would be less one sided.
A 32 team World Cup has been the gear version of the World Cup with 8 groups of 4 and then the drama in the group stages is excellent to see.
A 32 Team World Cup is the one where the meaning of qualifying is so much more because it becomes decades before a nation qualities for the event and then it means so much to them like Wales qualified for this World Cup for the first time in 64 years.
Cons
A 32 team World Cup does not allow the other nations who are not the elite to get a chance to get the big tournament experience and so they do not develop properly.
A 32 Team World Cup becomes where some of the best players in the world miss out on playing in the event because their team us not that good and the fans are deprived of seeing them play.
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48 Team World Cup
Now we will talk about the 48 team World Cup which will be the way FIFA will go from the next tournament in 2026 which will be played in the USA, Canada and Mexico. They have done this because more teams will get to play the top tournament in world football. So, let’s look at the pros and cons for a 48 team World Cup
Pros
A 48 Team World Cup allows for more nations to get the experience of playing in the World Cup and learning from playing against the top teams and then improve their football so that they can get better
A 48 Team World Cup will mean a longer World Cup and the fans wait 4 years for it so a longer event will only make the fans happier and more football will be seen
A 48 Team World Cup will get more fans to watch the Matches because the more nations play in it then the people from that country will watch the FIFA World Cup.
Cons
A 48 Team World Cup will reduce the value and the volume that it means to qualify for the FIFA World Cup because every nation will qualify for every World Cup.
A 48 Team World Cup will disrupt the flow of the event and any changes are not welcomed at first so FIFA will have to be very careful
A 48 Team World Cup will mean more one sided matches and then the fans will lose interest so it might get less competitive rull the knockouts come around
Now it is for the fans to give their opinion as to which format of the World Cup they would love to watch in the future. I personally would like a 48 team World Cup because it would give India a much better chance of getting in the World Cup and many nations will get the World Cup experience and I would suggest FIFA stick to the 4 team groups.
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