Infantino's wishes have been made a reality. The World Cup as we know it will no longer be and in 2026 it will have a new format.
The group stage will be made up of 16 groups of three teams and the top two from each group will go through. Furthermore, in the group stages there will be no draws and matches that end in a draw will be decided with a penalty shootout.
From there, the knockout phase begins: the last 32, the last 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. There will not be extra-time until the semi-finals and drawn matches will be decided with penalties.
The match scheduling will also undergo changes in order to achieve the biggest audiences possible, even though the losers of this will be the fans at the stadiums themselves. FIFA intends to play the matches at a time which suites all time zones - a very difficult task.
There will be 80 matches instead of 64, although the competition will last 32 days. This means that early matches may be of a lower standard.
The main candidates to host the new World Cup are Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Algeria and Morrocco.
The fact that more countries will participate means that there will be a higher television audience and even more taking into account Asian football fans.
With the amplification, many more countries will have the opportunity to play in the World Cup, something which many people see as a positive. However, others believe that this is a bad idea and are against the changes. What do you think? Do you like the idea of a 48-team World Cup?