FIFA World Cup 2026 opinion poll + discusion about new format & rules

[DrBeer]

When I first heard the story about FIFA overturning ban for USA's Folarin Balogun i thought it was a joke, but looks like this is real.
Apparently this is only the second time where a player that got sent off in the World Cup finals will not be serving a ban, the first time was in 1962 and involved Brazil's Garrincha, but back then the bans were not automatic.

This time is much weirder. The media report that the decision was indeed made after Donald Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino and convinced him that Balogun should be able to play in the next game.
FIFA and its president single-handedly ruined the organisation's reputation, which was already quite low. Allegedly even UEFA accused FIFA of crossing red line.

I hope that USA will sit Balogun on the bench and not use that undeserved "gift" that makes the entire tournament look corrupted and unfair.

More on the story:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cly99dxjkxxo
https://metro.co.uk/video/trump-jests-getting-balogun-red-card-overturned-3676751/

I'm curious, are match scores determined by goals, or by the new rules, based on whatever numbers Trump tells the FIFA president when he calls!?
It’s funny… BUT in reality, we’re now seeing that FIFA has degenerated and is becoming a lapdog, whoever pays the bills owns it and tells it what to do. So why go through all that trouble? Trump could have just called, given a list of teams and their rankings, FIFA would have accepted it, and in five minutes, it would all be done, we’d have our champions!

[KTChampions]

FIFA continues to disgrace itself. By the way, the disqualification was not cancelled but postponed for a year with a probationary period, what nonsense. A shameful decision from FIFA, it's a shame the Belgian team has no backbone and only filed a complaint against this decision, rather than, for example, deciding not to show up for the game if Balogun were to play. If they had done this (or at least announced such a possibility), then I am 100% sure that the lifting of the disqualification would have been quickly reversed, since no one wants the shame to increase exponentially.

Yes, FIFA will be ashamed of itself for continuing to bow to Donald Trump.

UEFA's statement on this case---Distrustful and unjustifiable.
https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/02a7-2109c8e9ef81-de5a993db109-1000--uefa-statement-on-the-balogun-case/
Ah, I'm sick of it all. I think the US host nation is full of drama, from before the match until after the match. FIFA's integrity is now being stripped away.

I'm surprised UEFA called a spade a spade rather than limiting itself to diplomatic language. At least there's something positive here.
I'm also glad that Belgium punished the US team and kicked them out of the tournament in such a harsh manner, but ultimately, it changes nothing. Rules and order have been lost not only in politics but in football as well. There's probably less than 10% of sport left, the rest is commerce, pandering to the ambitions of degenerate politicians, and other filth.

[pawel7777]

Apparently the Egyptian Football Association is not happy about how the game between their national tam and Argentina went. They have filed an official complaint about some of the decisions made during the game by the team of referees.
The main issues they have are related to the improper use of the VAR system.
They complained about VAR being used to disallow the goal scored by Mostafa Zico, while later the system hasn't been used when Egypt appealed for a penalty after Hamdy Fathy went down.

More on the story:
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/7/8/egypt-criticises-influential-refereeing-in-argentina-world-cup-match
or:
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-07-08/egyptian-fa-lodges-complaint-with-fifa-after-blatant-errors-in-argentina-game

[nelson4lov]

Apparently the Egyptian Football Association is not happy about how the game between their national tam and Argentina went. They have filed an official complaint about some of the decisions made during the game by the team of referees.
The main issues they have are related to the improper use of the VAR system.
They complained about VAR being used to disallow the goal scored by Mostafa Zico, while later the system hasn't been used when Egypt appealed for a penalty after Hamdy Fathy went down.

More on the story:
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/7/8/egypt-criticises-influential-refereeing-in-argentina-world-cup-match
or:
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-07-08/egyptian-fa-lodges-complaint-with-fifa-after-blatant-errors-in-argentina-game

It's the same story every time. These appeals don't work as long as there are greater forces at play that wants Argentina to win. At best, the complaint will be kept till end of the tournament unattended to and at that point, the damage has since been done and there is no going back to to moment and there is nothing the appeal will do that will compensate for exit from the world cup.

[Son Of Blockchain (SOB)]

Apparently the Egyptian Football Association is not happy about how the game between their national tam and Argentina went. They have filed an official complaint about some of the decisions made during the game by the team of referees.
The main issues they have are related to the improper use of the VAR system.
They complained about VAR being used to disallow the goal scored by Mostafa Zico, while later the system hasn't been used when Egypt appealed for a penalty after Hamdy Fathy went down.

More on the story:
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/7/8/egypt-criticises-influential-refereeing-in-argentina-world-cup-match
or:
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-07-08/egyptian-fa-lodges-complaint-with-fifa-after-blatant-errors-in-argentina-game

It's the same story every time. These appeals don't work as long as there are greater forces at play that wants Argentina to win. At best, the complaint will be kept till end of the tournament unattended to and at that point, the damage has since been done and there is no going back to to moment and there is nothing the appeal will do that will compensate for exit from the world cup.

FIFA is gradually ruining this competition, to them they have the final say and can do whatever they like but the world is watching, reasonable people can see how bias they're in this competition. Shame of them, they can do everything they want to make sure their script plays out well but "the world is watching like i said.
 I know how painful it is for the Egyptians that's why they're trying to appeal even when they know nothing can be done to change error in their last game. I felt CAF was worst but know i know who's their mentor in corruption (FIFA).

[pawel7777]

It's the same story every time. These appeals don't work as long as there are greater forces at play that wants Argentina to win. At best, the complaint will be kept till end of the tournament unattended to and at that point, the damage has since been done and there is no going back to to moment and there is nothing the appeal will do that will compensate for exit from the world cup.

There's an exactly zero chance the result of the game will be overturned. Argentina got through, and the complaint won't change that.
But I don't think that's what the Egyptian FA is hoping for. Probably their motivation is to let out all the frustration and use the opportunity to show all of the Egyptian fans that they are doing "something" and win some sympathy (which the local FAs often lack).

And it doesn't take much effort to draft a complaint, so if they genuinely feel their team was treated unfairly, then why not express that in an official manner?
They do not have much to win here, but also nothing to lose.

[Franctoshi]

Apparently the Egyptian Football Association is not happy about how the game between their national tam and Argentina went. They have filed an official complaint about some of the decisions made during the game by the team of referees.
The main issues they have are related to the improper use of the VAR system.
They complained about VAR being used to disallow the goal scored by Mostafa Zico, while later the system hasn't been used when Egypt appealed for a penalty after Hamdy Fathy went down.

More on the story:
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/7/8/egypt-criticises-influential-refereeing-in-argentina-world-cup-match
or:
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-07-08/egyptian-fa-lodges-complaint-with-fifa-after-blatant-errors-in-argentina-game

Shows the level of corruption and manipulation in the system, and the extent of influence of Donald trump on the globe stage .
FIFA role were meant to remain transparent in the
It decision and not be biased with their judgements on already established rules.

[JiiBs]

Shows the level of corruption and manipulation in the system, and the extent of influence of Donald trump on the globe stage .
FIFA role were meant to remain transparent in the
It decision and not be biased with their judgements on already established rules.

I don’t know what we would have expect of the FIFA president when he gets a call from Donald T. Of course he haven’t got a say but unfortunately for USA, they got humbled by Belgium and the call ended up not yielding the desired result as the player did flop.

However, this highlights just how the game has being influenced behind the scenes, several controversial decisions we tend to notice in the game today are as a result of such calls from behind the scene.
Good enough, the USA isn’t a strong football country and so, they Donald T didn’t know or just didn’t care to be quiet about his call. I suppose that’s another way to project what his doing for the country and it robs us of the game.

[Tonimez]

Shows the level of corruption and manipulation in the system, and the extent of influence of Donald trump on the globe stage .
FIFA role were meant to remain transparent in the
It decision and not be biased with their judgements on already established rules.

I don’t know what we would have expect of the FIFA president when he gets a call from Donald T. Of course he haven’t got a say but unfortunately for USA, they got humbled by Belgium and the call ended up not yielding the desired result as the player did flop.

However, this highlights just how the game has being influenced behind the scenes, several controversial decisions we tend to notice in the game today are as a result of such calls from behind the scene.
Good enough, the USA isn’t a strong football country and so, they Donald T didn’t know or just didn’t care to be quiet about his call. I suppose that’s another way to project what his doing for the country and it robs us of the game.

The level of corruption in FIFA seems to be on the rise every season. I usually thought it was a fanbase war but over time I started understanding that the FIFA we knew have their favourites whom they try as much as possible to protect. Some people believe that most of this biased decisions are for economic reasons because of the attention each team or player brings to the tournament. The week in the world cup tournament blew up shits that has long been left aside, the overturning of Balogun's yellow card ahead of Belgium game and the officiation of Argentina Vs Egypt. These two scenarios are strong indicators of this corruption.

Now, everyone is beginning to speak out. The Egypt FA has Submitted formal petition to express their grievance over their refereeing team in their last world cup tournament game against Argentina. This corruption is multifaceted and this whole decision is made behind the scenes based on calls or influences on the game which indirectly makes FIFA to decide to leave a player or team in the tournament.

Other corruption accusations still involve the supposed red card offence for Lionel Messi which he committed during their game against Algeria. If he was handed the red card, the revenue of FIFA from streaming and views would drop drastically and FIFA would not want to do that.

[AHOYBRAUSE]

Apparently the Egyptian Football Association is not happy about how the game between their national tam and Argentina went. They have filed an official complaint about some of the decisions made during the game by the team of referees.
The main issues they have are related to the improper use of the VAR system.
They complained about VAR being used to disallow the goal scored by Mostafa Zico, while later the system hasn't been used when Egypt appealed for a penalty after Hamdy Fathy went down.

More on the story:
https://www.aljazeera.com/sports/2026/7/8/egypt-criticises-influential-refereeing-in-argentina-world-cup-match
or:
https://www.itv.com/news/2026-07-08/egyptian-fa-lodges-complaint-with-fifa-after-blatant-errors-in-argentina-game

Shows the level of corruption and manipulation in the system, and the extent of influence of Donald trump on the globe stage .
FIFA role were meant to remain transparent in the
It decision and not be biased with their judgements on already established rules.

This in around the 14th or so world cup I am actively following and it's BY FAR the most annoying and most terrible I have ever seen. So much outside influence, bad decisions, unfair hosts (Mexican fans camping in front of opponents hotels) and ridiculous referees. I mean why do we even have VAR. This whole system destroyed the game. Goals get disallowed because 1 min earlier there was a small foul that lead to a loss of possession, how ridiculous is that. Whole FIFA should get banned from anything sports related. These rich money hungry clowns actually manage to make football even less interesting year by year.

[DrBeer]

I may be wrong, please correct me, but I can’t recall a World Cup this disgraceful, or such appalling behavior on FIFA’s part... They turned the World Cup into some kind of spectacle... I wonder if there will be legal proceedings and investigations into "external influence on decision-making" after the tournament? I think that would be telling.

[knowngunman]

I may be wrong, please correct me, but I can’t recall a World Cup this disgraceful, or such appalling behavior on FIFA’s part... They turned the World Cup into some kind of spectacle... I wonder if there will be legal proceedings and investigations into "external influence on decision-making" after the tournament? I think that would be telling.

Seriously, this year's world cup has definitely felt different from the previous ones. I have no problem with the expansion but is it also necessary to inflate the ticket price? That's by the way.

From everything going on, investigation is very necessary. FIFA usually get investigated after every World Cup ranging from ethics probe, financial audits and complaints about officiating issues. But sadly, FIFA usually find their way out clean.

Egypt football Association already filed an official complaint with FIFA demanding an investigation into the refereeing team. I expect them to take further steps if FIFA reject their complaint.

[d5000]

Now the first parts of the knockout stage are done, I begin to like the 48 team format a bit. I've still voted for "Meh".

I didn't like the fact initially that in the group stage, only a third of the teams are eliminated. The group stage is the "fairest" part of the World Cup because a bad day doesn't eleiminate your team like in the knockout stage. I liked the previous format where the first two only are passing to the next round, it gave the group stage more excitement and made it "heavier".

In addition, what many of you mentioned, the third game could lead to informal match fixing in games both teams can qualify. I also would have preferred the goal difference as the deciding factor.

But thinking about it, we had exciting games in the knockout stage against rivals who would have been eliminated with the previous format. Take  Paraguay. They were third of their group, but eliminated Germany and France's win against them was very close.

Digging a bit deeper I think this format gives defensive teams more chances, because they don't need to win that many games in the group stage. I don't know if this is good or bad, but it changes the dynamics a bit and gives also smaller teams a strategic option. This is of course also relevant for betting.

I personally perhaps would perhaps expand the WC to 64 teams and return to the previous group phase format where the first two qualify. This would of course mean even more games to organize, but not that many more.

The three-team groups idea that was discussed looked also a bit interesting.

[pawel7777]

There's another complaint filed to FIFA, but this one is a bit bizarre.
Apparently Spain and France both made complaints about one of the tournament sponsors, ExpressVPN:

https://metro.co.uk/2026/07/08/france-spain-submit-complaint-fifa-disastrous-world-cup-decision-29089290/

Reason? VPN services make it easier for their home fans to watch games streamed illegally. So it's not like ExpressVPN (or other VPNs) are doing anything wrong, it's just they allow users some privacy, which they can use in a way that do not profit football associations and sports broadcasters. That's a bit twisted logic.
I hope those complaints turn out to be even more effective advertisement for VPN services than the stadium banners themselves.

[LUCKMCFLY]

I may be wrong, please correct me, but I can’t recall a World Cup this disgraceful, or such appalling behavior on FIFA’s part... They turned the World Cup into some kind of spectacle... I wonder if there will be legal proceedings and investigations into "external influence on decision-making" after the tournament? I think that would be telling.

If we're going to talk about Infantino's tastes, it's necessary to emphasize that there was favoritism, but it wasn't blatant. On the other hand, this World Cup has been complete shamelessness. Besides, I didn't like the treatment of teams like Iran. I expected a much bigger spectacle from the opening ceremony, it wasn't. Also, I think the elimination stage for the teams was very sudden death; they should have given more opportunities, but for more opportunities, you need more teams.

[Jaycoinz]

I may be wrong, please correct me, but I can’t recall a World Cup this disgraceful, or such appalling behavior on FIFA’s part... They turned the World Cup into some kind of spectacle... I wonder if there will be legal proceedings and investigations into "external influence on decision-making" after the tournament? I think that would be telling.

If we're going to talk about Infantino's tastes, it's necessary to emphasize that there was favoritism, but it wasn't blatant. On the other hand, this World Cup has been complete shamelessness. Besides, I didn't like the treatment of teams like Iran. I expected a much bigger spectacle from the opening ceremony, it wasn't. Also, I think the elimination stage for the teams was very sudden death; they should have given more opportunities, but for more opportunities, you need more teams.

There have been countless incidents and drama in this world cup that have made me so certain that this world cup is really something else, there have been so many crazy things on and off the pitch  that have made the whole competition so disgusting to follow, the most annoying part is that the so called FIFA president himself has no clue whatsoever about the sport of football as this was one of the statement that some fans are holding on to sighting that he does things out of the blue as a politician will do and not like someone who has the love for the sport or even experience as the case may be.

[LUCKMCFLY]

There have been countless incidents and drama in this world cup that have made me so certain that this world cup is really something else, there have been so many crazy things on and off the pitch  that have made the whole competition so disgusting to follow, the most annoying part is that the so called FIFA president himself has no clue whatsoever about the sport of football as this was one of the statement that some fans are holding on to sighting that he does things out of the blue as a politician will do and not like someone who has the love for the sport or even experience as the case may be.

For the good of football, Infantino must go. Just looking at him makes me angry. To me, he's incompetent, a politician, a puppet of the politicians. That's what he is, a puppet, and I don't like it because football shouldn't be about politics or bias. That's what makes the corruption network so big that everything looks bad. If you're president of FIFA, you should at least hide your bias towards a certain team, because that team's advantages over the others are obvious.

[pawel7777]

An interesting read:
FIFA rule change gave four World Cup teams easier routes to semi-finals months ago
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/fifa-rule-change-world-cup-37405175

I was not aware that FIFA introduced a new rule in November 2025, implemented to ensure that the top 4 seeded teams will not face each other early on, before the semi-final.
The top 4 teams in question are Spain, Argentina, France and England.
The rule was contingent on each of the four teams winning their respective groups.

I have mixed feelings about that rule. On one hand, in seems a bit unfair towards other countries, but then again, this could be justified if the seeding is based on an objective set of rules. Having the strongest teams competing against each other in the early stage would not be desirable.

[nelson4lov]

~Snipped

I have mixed feelings about that rule. On one hand, in seems a bit unfair towards other countries, but then again, this could be justified if the seeding is based on an objective set of rules. Having the strongest teams competing against each other in the early stage would not be desirable.

I've known about this rule change. The thing, even if it was decide to be that way, it was dependent on those top seeds winning their group. So even if a top seeded team had that privilege but still fumbled their group stage games, they don't benefit from that structure. This is not the first competition that uses this kind of structure. It's only weird because we have become accustomed to the old structure. But give it a few more world cup. It would become a normalcy.

[Crytohillss]

I may be wrong, please correct me, but I can’t recall a World Cup this disgraceful, or such appalling behavior on FIFA’s part... They turned the World Cup into some kind of spectacle... I wonder if there will be legal proceedings and investigations into "external influence on decision-making" after the tournament? I think that would be telling.

If we're going to talk about Infantino's tastes, it's necessary to emphasize that there was favoritism, but it wasn't blatant. On the other hand, this World Cup has been complete shamelessness. Besides, I didn't like the treatment of teams like Iran. I expected a much bigger spectacle from the opening ceremony, it wasn't. Also, I think the elimination stage for the teams was very sudden death; they should have given more opportunities, but for more opportunities, you need more teams.

There have been countless incidents and drama in this world cup that have made me so certain that this world cup is really something else, there have been so many crazy things on and off the pitch  that have made the whole competition so disgusting to follow, the most annoying part is that the so called FIFA president himself has no clue whatsoever about the sport of football as this was one of the statement that some fans are holding on to sighting that he does things out of the blue as a politician will do and not like someone who has the love for the sport or even experience as the case may be.

It really feels like the match has taken a back seat to all the controversies. Fans just want a tournaments that's remembered for the action on the pitch not the drama surrounded it's definitely been one of the most controversial competition in recent memory , while some of the criticism is justified . I just hoping the focus shift back to the football because that's what's most fans cherish.