FIFA not set on 3-team groups for '26 World Cup

Arsene Wenger, FIFA's main of planetary football, said a last determination has not yet been made connected the format for the 2026 World Cup, which is being hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The 2022 World Cup saw large play arsenic the radical signifier climaxed with each 4 teams played simultaneously, but with the last tourney being expanded from 32 to 48 teams, FIFA has to find a caller system.

It's astir six years since the FIFA assembly voted to summation the size of the World Cup successful January 2017 and approved a format which would spot the 48 teams divided into 16 groups of 3 teams -- with the apical 2 going done to a circular of 32.

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But this would mean the 2 teams successful the last radical fixture could play retired a circumstantial effect to nonstop some teams done astatine the disbursal of the squad not playing, and this has led to a rethink. FIFA has adjacent raised the imaginable of putting a punishment shootout connected the extremity of each radical signifier drawn game, but adjacent that wouldn't flooded teams playing retired a circumstantial scoreline that suited both.

On Sunday, Wenger told a quality league for the FIFA method survey radical that 3 options were nether consideration. As good arsenic the three-team option, different proposition is that determination would beryllium 12 groups of 4 teams, with the champion third-placed teams advancing with the apical two. A 3rd enactment is to divided the World Cup into 2 abstracted halves of 24, each featuring six groups of 4 teams. The victor of each fractional would conscionable successful the final.

"This is not decided," Wenger said. "but it volition beryllium 16 groups of three, 12 groups of four, oregon 2 sides of six groups of 4 -- similar you organise 2 24 teams.

"I volition not beryllium capable to determine that, it volition beryllium decided by the FIFA [council], and I deliberation it volition beryllium done successful the adjacent year."

The cities officially selected to big World Cup matches successful the U.S. are: New York/New Jersey (MetLife Stadium); Los Angeles (SoFi Stadium); Dallas (AT&T Stadium); San Francisco Bay Area (Levi's Stadium); Miami (Hard Rock Stadium); Atlanta (Mercedes-Benz Stadium); Seattle (Lumen Field); Houston (NRG Stadium); Philadelphia (Lincoln Financial Field); Kansas City, Missouri (Arrowhead Stadium); and Boston/Foxborough (Gillette Stadium).