Former Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has some thoughts on the 2026 FIFA World Cup expanding the number of teams included. In a nutshell: He absolutely loves it.
The FIFA World Cup is receiving all the usual amount of attention that comes with each and every tournament. However, this time around, it is also drawing a more powerful spotlight due to its increase in the number of participating national clubs. The previous seven World Cups have all featured 32 teams duking it out for the ultimate title. Next year, though, the tournament will be headlined by a whopping 48 squads.
FIFA stakeholders are by and large smitten with the expansion. They see opportunities for revenue growth galore. More teams means more games across the host countries, which are the United States, Canada and Mexico. It also means more interest and revenue from World Cup betting trends, which were already crescendoing before the entire field was finalized.
Wenger, the current FIFA chief of global football development, shares this optimistic slant. “I believe that 48 teams is the right number,” he said while speaking at a panel ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup Draw, per ESPN’s Jeff Carlisle.
“It’s less than 25 percent for 211 countries who are affiliated to FIFA. That means one team out of four has a chance to participate. That means still 75 percent of the teams are not there.”
While Wenger’s sentiments are true in concept, they do little to assuage concerns that the increased number of participating countries will ultimately dilute the level of competition. As it turns out, though, Wenger has an answer to this, too.
When pressed about the possibility of competition quality winnowing down, Wenger wasn’t quite dismissive, but he didn’t seem at all worried. From Carlisle’s piece over at ESPN:
“As for the possible dilution of quality, Wenger pointed to the recently contested FIFA U17 World Cup, which also had 48 teams. ‘I’m quite optimistic, because to qualify you need to beat the teams of your confederation, and that’s a sign of quality, it’s just down to results,’ Wenger said. ‘The teams are not there by coincidence because they’ve been invited. [They’re] here because they’ve beaten some teams in their confederation, but have a quality, and you look at the playoffs now, the quality of the players and the quality of the teams that we played there. So I’m optimistic about that. We had the same question to answer at the U17 World Cup and we were positively surprised [at the quality].”
To Wenger’s point, the U17 World Cup did not suffer from a dilution of quality. There were plenty of nail-biters, and even though it crowned a first-time winner, in Portugal, the entire process was considered a rousing success.
Look no further than the attendance at the U17 World Cup as proof. By the end of it all, it set a record for the total number of people who sat in person to watch games.
People worried about the quality of 2026 World Cup play may want to zoom out and really think about the amount of elite talent peppered around the globe. Let’s look at the Arsenal football club as one example.
Below, you can see every Arsenal FC player currently guaranteed to appear in the 2026 World Cup, along with the national team they’ll be repping:
We are not quite sure who needs to hear this, but that’s a lot of star power. And we are talking about just one roster sending all that talent to the tournament.
Indeed, Arsenal FC is the mother of all exceptions when it comes to individual starpower. But other clubs like FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester City could be sending just as many bodies, if not potentially more.
Of course, we cannot know for certain whether the 48-team format will compromise the on-pitch World Cup product until we actually see it. This is a matter that will be settled over the next half-year or so. But at the bare minimum, the talent pool is seemingly deep enough to justify testing out an expanded bracket.
If it ends up not panning out or being one of the less-competitive World Cups in vintage, FIFA may need to revisit the approach. For now, we should all approach it with an open mind, if not outright optimism. Judging by how quickly tickets to World Cup matches are selling out, and how much they are reselling for, it sure seems like fans around the globe share in Wenger’s rosy outlook.
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