Gianni Infantino to expand World Cup to 40 teams if elected Fifa president

The World Cup could be expanded by eight teams to 40 if Gianni Infantino is elected as the Fifa president.

Infantino, the face of European competition draws as Uefa’s secretary general, revealed his first plans to transform Fifa after making a surprising late decision to enter the election .

European football scrambled to find a candidate as a substitute for Infantino’s superior, Michel Platini, after the Uefa president was provisionally suspended by Fifa. Platini is at risk of a long ban once the ethics probe into a 2011 payment from Fifa has been completed, which would make him ineligible for the 26 February election.

Infantino insisted that if he is elected to lead Fifa he would not stand down if Platini later wins any appeals.

Infantino has worked in Platini’s shadow, implementing the president’s vision from financial fair play for clubs to expanding the European Championship from 16 to 24 teams starting with next summer’s tournament. If Infantino gets his way, the World Cup also could have to find space for an additional eight teams.

“I believe in expanding the World Cup based on the experience we had in Europe with the Euros,” Infantino said. “Look at qualifiers now where some teams who have never qualified did and some teams which have always qualified didn’t make it. So it created a completely new dynamic in the qualification. It created new enthusiasm. If you are serious about developing football it must involve more associations in the best football event in the world: The World Cup.”

It would be too soon to swell to 40 teams in Russia in 2018 given that qualifying has already started and it could be problematic for Qatar since the plan is to squeeze the 64 games into 28 days to cope with staging the tournament in November-December 2022 rather than the traditional June-July slot.

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