World Cup and Club World Cup expansion shows ‘complete disregard’ for leagues by FIFA, says LaLiga | Football News

FIFA has shown “disregard” for the importance of national competitions by approving a 32-team Club World Cup and an expanded World Cup, according to LaLiga.

Ahead of the congress in Kigali, Rwanda, FIFA announced on Tuesday that the 2026 World Cup will have 104 matches instead of the current 64 games due to an expanded format with 48 participating teams.

The governing body is also saving the bigger Club World Cup to be played every four years from June 2025.

But the decision was criticized by LaLiga, with Spain’s top flight saying: “FIFA continues to make the mistake of making unilateral decisions on the world football calendar, showing disregard for the importance of national championships and the football community in general.

“FIFA ignores the economic damage that this decision has caused to leagues around the world. The league was not consulted about the changes presented today, especially about the new annual club competition.

“This decision does not take into account the competitive impact, sport and economy in the national league, clubs and players by more cramming the schedule is overloaded. FIFA only takes into account a small group of clubs and players.”

LaLiga added that it and other leagues in the World League Forum (WLF), the organization that represents professional association football leagues, will “analyze FIFA’s decision and decide on the most appropriate next steps”.

In December, the WLF criticized the creation of a 32-team Club World Cup, saying it could have damaging consequences for football’s economy and player welfare.

PFA: Schedules affecting player welfare

The Professional Footballers’ Association also followed the changes, with Maheta Molango, the union’s chief executive, saying: “Fundamentally, the football calendar needs a complete reset.

“The expanded format of the World Cup announced for 2026 means, once again, more games are forced into an already crowded schedule.

“It is true that FIFA has listened to players’ concerns and announced a working group to address the critical issues of congestion and player welfare.

“However, it is difficult to see how it will align with the expansion of the domestic and international calendar.

“We know that the workload our players are under today has an ongoing impact on their well-being, both on and off the pitch.

The revised match calendar was approved by the FIFA council, the world football organization’s main decision-making body which has 37 members, including president Gianni Infantino and 28 others elected by member associations.

How will the 2026 World Cup fare?

The 2026 tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada will have 12 groups of four teams. The top two teams will advance to the round of 32 with the eight best third-placed teams.

FIFA has considered a format of 12 groups of three teams but the excitement generated by the traditional four-team group format used in the Qatar World Cup has helped to convince the FIFA Council to stick with four-team groups.

The combined number of breaks, releases and tournament days remains the same as the previous World Cups in 2010, 2014 and 2018 – 56 days.

This means that the teams that reach the final will now have to play eight matches, instead of the seven played by Qatar 2022 finalists Argentina and France.

The final in the United States will take place on Sunday 19 July 2026.

Why FIFA is having a ‘rethink’ on the World Cup format

Sky Sports News chief reporter Kaveh Solhekol:

“FIFA has a problem because it will be the first World Cup with 48 teams, so they are trying to figure out how to organize it.

“It will be 16 groups of three teams and you can have a situation where two teams only play two games before losing and going home.

“FIFA has been thinking again, which has been accelerated by the World Cup in Qatar. FIFA thinks the Qatar World Cup is exciting – there is a lot of danger and a lot at stake.

“That is why they have looked again and at this meeting of the FIFA Council in Rwanda, it will be officially approved.

“A lot of traditionalists will say they don’t like 48 teams because there are too many teams and the quality will suffer. It’s also bad for the environment to have more teams flying around Mexico, Canada and the US.

However, another argument is that FIFA is made up of 211 different countries and of those countries only 78 have ever played in the World Cup, so they have lobbied FIFA to say that they should have the opportunity to play in the World Cup. Otherwise, the standard of football will not improve.

Judging from the slot allocation, in the World Cup in Qatar only five countries are from Africa even though there are 54 African countries that are members of FIFA.

“The allocation of slots will increase from five to nine, now there will be eight teams from Asia, six teams from CONCACAF so if you remove the blinkers and look at football not only from the perspective of western Europe, the rest of the world – well, those who let me tell you – do it like the World Cup will be expanded and it will be the World Cup.”