FIFA World Cup 2026: FIFA has recently announced that the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be between 48 teams and there will be a total of 104 games, which increased from 64. However, La Liga has released a statement that said that this move was not discussed with the leagues around the world and FIFA did not consider the general football community while deciding on this move. Follow Football News Updates on InsideSport.IN.
FIFA World Cup 2026: FIFA set to INTRODUCE prolonged competition timeline, La Liga BURSTS out over FIFA’s undiscussed football calendar – Check Out
FIFA initially planned to conduct the 2026 World Cup with 48 teams divided into 3 groups of 16 teams. However, after the drama and the success of the 4-team group structure during the 2022 Qatar World Cup, FIFA has decided to play with 12 groups of 3 teams or 16 groups of 3 teams. The top 2 teams from each group will directly advance to the next stage and then the best 8 third-placed teams will join them.
This will prolong the competition timeline and increase the total match number from 64 to 104. This also means that the winning team will have played a total of 8 matches throughout the tournament. In the current World Cup format, the winning team plays one less game than that.
They are also planning on introducing a new club tournament worldwide which is supposed to add to the prolonged Club World Cup calendar. The prolonged Club World Cup will supposedly take place once every four years starting from 2025. Additionally, there will be another event that is still unnamed that will annually take place alongside this once-in-four-year event.
FIFA World Cup 2026: FIFA set to INTRODUCE prolonged competition timeline, La Liga BURSTS out over FIFA’s undiscussed football calendar – Check Out
“FIFA continues its malpractice of making unilateral decisions on the world football calendar, showing complete disregard for the importance of national championships, and the football community in general.”
La Liga have put out a press release on the FIFA World Cup plans. pic.twitter.com/jA5FPgdzio
— Football España (@footballespana_) March 15, 2023
While this means more worldwide engagement and more activities throughout the year, it does create a clash with the current timelines of national leagues. La Liga recently released a statement that read, “Following the announcements made today at the 73rd FIFA Congress in Kigali, Rwanda, LaLiga states that FIFA continues its malpractice of making unilateral decisions on the world football calendar.”
It continued, “[FIFA is] showing complete disregard for the importance of national championships, and the football community in general. FIFA completely neglects the economic damage these decisions inflict on leagues around the world. Leagues were not consulted about any of the changes presented, especially about the new annual club competition, of which we were completely unaware, and which seriously affects our competitions.”
About their next steps, it read, “These decisions do not take into account the competitive, sporting and economic impact on national leagues, clubs and players, by further cramming an already overloaded schedule. LaLiga and other leagues represented in the World Leagues Forum will analyse FIFA’s decisions and decide on the most appropriate next steps.”
