World Cup every two years? FIFA told to change finals frequency by CONMEBOL

CONMEBOL is lobbying FIFA to stage the World Cup every two years, according to the South American federation’s president, Alejandro Dominguez.

There is an apparent concern from Dominguez’s organisation that Europe is moving further ahead of South America, especially given the success of the UEFA Nations League. CONMEBOL is also open to the possibility of expanding the competition to include teams from South America.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has shown himself to be open to experimenting with new tournaments and formats. The World Cup, FIFA's marquee event, was recently expanded from its current 32 teams to 48 for the 2026 edition and there is even talk of the Qatar 2022 tournament growing in size.

Sepp Blatter, FIFA's former president, floated the idea of a World Cup every two years as early as 1999, but the concept failed to garner support.

“The proposal we have made to FIFA is to play the World Cup every two years and not every four,” said Dominguez, whose body announced its support of Infantino’s re-election bid last week.

“Instead of having the Nations League in between we can just go ahead every two years and have a World Cup and that is for everyone.

“It’s for the players because they could play four World Cups if we move to a two-year cycle. If we stay with this format many players will not be able to play more than two.

“There are many solutions. We could hold the tournament in Europe, South America, North America, Africa and Asia without such a long wait. So we see an opportunity there and there is a proposal put forward to FIFA."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has shown the benefits to sponsors of holding major events every two years, making the decision to alternate its summer and winter games during the 1990s.

Dominguez also extolled the financial virtues of increasing the World Cup frequency, adding: “In terms of economics FIFA make money and give more money.”