Fifa Points Account  official confirmed that the World Cup from the beginning of 2026 will be expanded to 48 teams, when the group stage will be divided into 16 groups for a single cycle, the group after the two top 32 teams directly to FIFA Coins the knockout. This means that since the 1934 World Cup expansion to 16 teams, the 1982 World Cup expansion to 24 teams and the 1998 World Cup expansion to 32 teams, the World Cup once again to achieve military expansion.

2026 began to expand to 48 teams to participate in the group stage is divided into 16 groups, each team three teams. More details will be officially announced after the FIFA Council meeting, no accident, and then the group stage is likely to introduce a penalty shootout.

This is an expected result. Since February 2016 due to the election of FIFA president Vatican, the World Cup expansion already imperative, the only suspense is the expansion of the scale and competition system changes. At the beginning, because the Vatican made the expansion to 40 teams participating in this premise is divided into two kinds of competition system, one is divided into eight groups, each team five teams, the other Is divided into ten groups, each team four teams.

But the two programs are obvious drawbacks, each team's five teams program to play a total of 88 games, the schedule is too tight, divided into 10 groups of the program is due to the better results of the third can also qualify, Will be like last year's European Cup as a result of group stage wonderful degree drops - the final win of Portugal three group stage are played a draw. In October last year, FIFA proposed a new program, that expansion to 48 teams participating, of which 32 teams need to play-off, the winning 16 teams and 16 teams into Buy FIFA Coins the group stage.