The men's World Cup has grown repeatedly over its history, and each expansion has been contested on sporting grounds and approved on other ones. The forces behind the growth are consistent across every enlargement.
More teams means more matches to sell
Tournament revenue is driven by broadcast and sponsorship rights, and both are priced partly on the number of matches available to televise.
Adding teams adds fixtures across the group stage, and those fixtures occupy hours that broadcasters in multiple time zones can sell independently.
Sponsorship follows the same logic, since a longer tournament with more participating nations reaches more markets for a longer period.
Qualification is the wider prize
The tournament itself involves a minority of the world's national associations, but qualification involves almost all of them over a period of years.
Additional places make qualification realistic for countries that previously had almost no prospect, which raises interest and revenue in those markets throughout the cycle.
Federations therefore support expansion for what it does to their own domestic competitions, not only for the chance of appearing at the finals.
Votes are distributed by association, not population
Governance decisions are taken by member associations, and every association holds equivalent voting weight regardless of its size or playing strength.
A proposal that benefits many small associations therefore commands a large majority even where the strongest footballing nations object.
Expansion is a reliable way to assemble that majority, which is why proposals to enlarge the field succeed more often than they fail.
The sporting objections are real
A larger field admits teams with weaker records, and early rounds contain more one-sided matches than a smaller tournament would produce.
Group formats also become awkward. Fields that do not divide neatly into groups of four force compromises that can create uneven numbers of matches or unequal rest.
Scheduling stretches further, colliding with domestic seasons and increasing the total workload on players who are already competing across a congested calendar.
Hosting requirements change with size
A larger tournament needs more stadiums, more training bases and more accommodation, which puts hosting beyond the reach of many individual countries.
Joint bids across neighbouring nations become the practical solution, spreading infrastructure demands and political risk across several governments.
Expansion therefore reshapes not only the competition but the set of places capable of staging it, which further changes who supports the proposal.
