It’s official. The 2026 World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico will host 48 teams. FIFA met on Tuesday in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, to formalize the news.
“The FIFA Council has unanimously approved the amendment to agree on a format of 48 teams divided into 12 groups of 4, and no longer in 3 groups of 16 “, announced the authority. The first two of each group as well as the eight best third will advance to the round of 16. In all, 104 matches will have been played at the end of the competition.
The last enlargement dated from the 1998 World Cup in France. Since then, the World Cup normally had 32 teams.
