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Vietnam and Thailand will have more opportunities if the World Cup is expanded to 64 teams. |
FIFA has pursued a plan to increase the number of teams participating in the World Cup to 64. This option could help further expand the number of slots for continents, especially in Asia. Thereby, teams such as Vietnam, Thailand, Oman... will have more opportunities to participate instead of the 48-team version with 8.5 slots for the AFC like the 2026 World Cup.
This option is still being consulted by the FIFA executive board before it can be applied at the 2030 World Cup. The world football governing body has sent an optimistic signal with the statement "under consideration".
However, the European Football Federation did not support it. “In my opinion, it is not a good idea. And it is not a good idea for our qualifying round. So I am not in favor. I do not know where it comes from, but it is strange that we did not know anything until the proposal was made at the FIFA council," UEFA president Ceferin said at the latest UEFA meeting.
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| New format could make European qualifying less competitive |
In the 48-team version, UEFA has 16 slots. That means a third of the teams that qualify for the European qualifiers will qualify for the finals. If it increases to 64 teams, UEFA will have more slots and that could make the confederation qualifiers much less competitive. The same goes for the South American qualifiers, where seven out of 10 teams can qualify for the finals. The new format could allow all of South America to qualify for the 2030 World Cup, making this regional qualifiers almost meaningless.
The option of increasing the number of participating teams to 64 still faces many challenges. However, the 2030 edition is very special because it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the World Cup. Therefore, FIFA has every reason to make an exception for the final round taking place in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
Source: https://tienphong.vn/uefa-phan-doi-y-tuong-mo-rong-world-cup-co-hoi-cua-tuyen-viet-nam-xa-voi-post1730982.tpo
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