Fifa World Cup: How a 48-tournament could look

England v Curacao, Australia v China? This is how a revamped World Cup could play out based on current rankings.

The World Cup will be expanded to 48 teams in 2026. Picture: AFP

Proposals to expand the World Cup from 32 teams to 48 were unanimously voted for by the Fifa Council yesterday with the changes coming into effect in time for the tournament in 2026.

The World Cup shake-up, led by the Fifa president Gianni Infantino, has led to widespread criticism with many commentators raising concerns about the quality of the smaller footballing nations set to benefit from the expansion.

But, taking into account the Fifa world rankings as they stand today, which teams would qualify for the group stage of the tournament in 2026?

As reported in The Times this morning, the competition could be co-hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico but for the purpose of this hypothetical scenario we have selected the US as the host nation.

It is expected that under the 48-team format, Europe will be allocated 16 places, Africa 9, Asia 8.5, South America 6, Central America 6.5, Oceania 1 and one more place for the host nation.

Because the US are the host nation, rather than give an extra place to Central America, the final place has been allocated to the highest-ranked team that failed to qualify for the tournament — in this case Ecuador.

Central America are represented by seven nations while Asia have eight because Curacao are ranked higher than Qatar.

The hosts and the remaining best-ranked 15 teams in the world have been seeded and placed at the top of each group while there is one European team in each group as is expected to be the case. The other nations have been placed in groups at random.

Potential groups

Group A: USA (Host), Italy, Panama
Group B: Argentina, Iceland, Saudi Arabia
Group C: Brazil, Slovakia, Ghana
Group D: Germany, Mexico, Nigeria
Group E: Chile, Ireland, Uzbekistan
Group F: Belgium, Burkina Faso, UAE
Group G: Colombia, Turkey, Haiti
Group H: France, Congo DR, Honduras
Group I: Portugal, Australia, China
Group J: Uruguay, Holland, Japan
Group K: Spain, Costa Rica, Algeria
Group L: Switzerland, Ecuador, South Korea
Group M: Wales, Egypt, Iran
Group N: England, Tunisia, Curacao
Group O: Croatia, Peru, Ivory Coast
Group P: Poland, Senegal, New Zealand

The Times