More Music, More Teams… More FIFA Money Grabs?! What’s Coming for the 2026 and 2030 World Cups
By: Mike Tirone
Halftime Shows and 64 Teams — FIFA Can’t Stop Tinkering with the World Cup!
Well, we’re almost through the first quarter of the year – can you believe it? I don’t know about you all, but I think it’s safe to say that almost every day of 2025 so far has provided us with more & more bewildering news. And I’m not even talking about the stuff coming out of Washington, D.C.!
In the realm of global footy, FIFA has had a rather busy start to its own calendar year, especially over the past month, which, for Fellow Footy Travelers (FFTs) waiting with bated breath for any and all kinds of news around several upcoming international tournaments, is a much welcomed thing. But the correspondence coming from the world’s favorite sport’s governing body this past month has been a bit head-scratching to say the least.
You may have seen the two most corru— I mean, powerful men in the world chumming it up in the Oval Office a few weeks ago. The Dr. Evil of world football himself, Gianni Infantino, and his ‘good friend’ Donald Trump announced the formation of a World Cup 2026 task force with a scribbled executive order, and discussed the importance of the next two years for soccer in the States (although it did look like Trump had only then just learned that his two nearest trade war opponents, Mexico and Canada, will also be co-hosting).
Now if that meeting of two old, white men puffing their chests out didn’t get you riled up for the most exciting time in the history of soccer in the United States, then maybe the announcement of the 2026 World Cup Final introducing a halftime show did?! Whether or not you agree that this seems like a rather egregious rip-off of an American sports culture staple, predominantly American football, perhaps there is some logic to it. After all, FIFA is always looking for ways to build its audience and make more money.
FIFA is taking notes from the Super Bowl, but its World Cup 2026 Final halftime show performer won’t be a G major.
Coming off of arguably the most historic (divisive? controversial?) Super Bowl halftime show by Kendrick Lamar this past February, it’s not necessarily surprising to hear that FIFA is considering abandoning a century-long tradition of not distracting from the significance of the match by replicating the “good ol’ Americana extravaganza!” Personally, I’d put this idea up there with Todd Boehly’s suggestion of doing an all-star game for the English Premier League (Does American capitalism require being painfully tone deaf or is that just part of being a billionaire?). At least FIFA landed Coldplay to be the very first (and hopefully only) World Cup Final halftime show performer, because us football fans haven’t been beaten over the head enough with their “Sky Full of Stars” song as a down-time pump-up song for the last two major tournaments already, right? I suppose it’s better than Kid Rock though.
Maybe the most perplexing of FIFA updates though, was the announcement of a “spontaneous” proposal during the closing moments of its recent council meeting that the 2030 World Cup – which will be hosted across 6 different countries, and three different continents – should expand to a 64-team tournament. As if pricing out the general public from attending matches by stretching the tournament across an entire ocean and two continents with opposing seasonal patterns isn’t enough, they’re now talking about increasing the number of participating federations being asked to do so (as well as pay an entry fee, probably). How brazen is this governing body in advertising openly that all it cares about is making as much money as possible at the expense of every- and anything else? Quite a bit if you ask me.
If the initial reports of such a proposal are any indication of how some FIFA representatives felt about it, we might be ok. The New York Times reported that there was “stunned silence” by the participants, and three unnamed sources said: “FIFA was likely to be guided by financial and political benefits as much as sporting ones when it came to taking a decision on the matter." All of this, by the way, before we’ve even kicked off the first of the four World Cup tournaments happening before 2030 (Club World Cup 2025, World Cup 2026, Women’s World Cup 2027, Club World Cup 2029).
The closer you sit to Infantino, the closer your hand comes to covering your face.
That said, as we ramp up for the Club World Cup this summer in the United States – the first of two World Cup tournaments the US is hosting in the same number of years – we have heard a lot of frustrations about the ticket purchasing process; tickets not being available to the general public for some matches, club’s season ticket holders having difficulty getting tickets or simply finding information on how to purchase them. For FIFA’s ‘test-run’ of the biggest World Cup in history in 2026 (with 48 teams), I wouldn’t say this fills a lot of fans with much confidence. Let’s just hope that when the matches do start, the organization impresses – and greatly exceeds the horrible job that CONMENBOL did for the Copa America tournament last year. Let’s also hope that fans shell out and show up, or it might be tricky for FIFA to pay out their astronomical $1 billion prize purse.
Just as we Footy Travelers have handled prior questionable decisions from FIFA, we continue to stick to what we can control, and that’s planning trips to see the world, enjoy the footy, and make meaningful connections with fellow fans and travelers from around the world. This summer we’ll surely be doing some traveling for a variety of footy-related events and activities (more on that in due time), but we’ll also be taking in the excitement of this summer’s Club World Cup locally in our hometowns, hosting several watch parties for the tournament’s key matches, and getting people pumped for an epic two years of footy in North America! Keep up with our announcements on these events on our Instagram or X/Twitter accounts, and be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter to get exclusive Footy Travelers info delivered straight to your inbox.
(Disclosure: We sometimes ideate, draft, and/or refine content with the aid of artificial intelligence tools, and revise it to reflect our own personalities & intended message.)
