Fifa has said that the decision on World Cup places for each confederation for the 48 team 2026 World Cup will be announced in May. You can imagine that between now and then there is going to be a lot of wrangling, negotiating, some compromising and a few promises made amongst all the confederations. Europe will always want more spots because they feel they offer the best overall quality, and every other continent will quite rightly maintain that finally deserve to be closer to Europe in terms of numbers. And Oceania will hope to finally get a guaranteed spot.
Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Writer at the Times of London, reported today that the expectation is that Europe will get 16 places, Asia 8.5, Africa 9, South America 6, Concacaf 6.5, Oceania 1 and one place for the host nation. Interestingly, the favourites to host the 2026 edition are two of the US, Mexico and Canada as co-hosts. So there's two host nation spots. But does that mean one taken away from Concacaf? So many debatable points already!
There is also lots of talk about South America and Concacaf merging with the joint confederation receiving 14 qualifying spots. The debate, as with many others, will go on and on. The president of the Venezuelan FA said Gianni Infantino indicated this is a strong possibility. But the Concacaf president said it may not be an option.
If South America does indeed get 6 spots, and there is no merger, that's 6 out of 10 teams in South America making it to the World Cup. That's 60% of the teams. If that ratio applied to Europe even Malta could be in with a shot.
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