Everything good in life lasts for a while, except for the FIFA World Cup, which will last at least 40 days from 2026, offering football fans more than 100 top-level matches. Yesterday, FIFA confirmed by decision of its board that from the upcoming World Cup, as K wrote from the end of last year, the 48 finalists who will take part will be divided into 12 groups of four, and not 16 of three.

The reason for the revision of the five-year-old decision of the International Football Federation is that a plan with groups of three would significantly reduce interest, and one of the three teams would be idle for the entire game day. “The revised system reduces the risk of collusion while also ensuring balanced rest times,” FIFA said in a statement after the council meeting in Kigali, Rwanda.

The first two teams of each group, plus the top eight third teams, will advance from the groups to the playoffs. In total, 104 matches will be played at the upcoming tournament, which will be held in the USA, Mexico and Canada, and the final is scheduled for July 19, 2026.

At the same time, two candidates for the 2030 event were reportedly presented by Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay, as well as Spain with Portugal and Morocco, which took the place of Ukraine. The joint candidacy of Greece with South Arabia and Egypt is still under study.