The 2026 FIFA World Cup arrives in its exceptional edition amid unprecedented global interest, particularly with the number of participating teams rising to 48 for the first time in the tournament's history. Prominent in this landscape is the broad Arab presence — a significant gain for Arab football, which now has a greater opportunity to appear and compete on the world stage.
This Arab participation gives players the chance to measure themselves against the highest technical and tactical standards, and contributes to the development of the footballing ecosystem — whether by strengthening sporting infrastructure or raising the ceiling of fans' ambitions — while also opening wider horizons for Arab talents to pursue professional careers in the world's strongest leagues.
The historic Moroccan experience at the 2022 Qatar World Cup proved that Arab teams are capable of going beyond token participation and reaching advanced stages when vision, stability, and professional work are in place.
At the same time, the significant expansion in the number of teams raises legitimate questions about the tournament's future and its competitive value. The 32-team format represented the pinnacle of difficulty and excitement, and a World Cup qualification berth was an exceptional achievement attained only by the strongest nations. Today, many believe that the increase in numbers came in response to marketing and commercial requirements aimed at boosting broadcast and sponsorship revenues, more than out of any desire to preserve the technical quality of the competition.
These concerns are compounded by the enormous physical strain the expansion may place on players, the sheer volume of matches, and the possibility of a decline in the technical level of some fixtures.
German football legend Berti Vogts expressed this anxiety when he declared that a tournament of this size "harms football," stressing that fans want to watch the best teams and the best players — not a tournament that expands purely out of financial gain.
The real challenge before FIFA remains to strike a balance between the commercial development of the game and the preservation of the World Cup's prestige as the greatest footballing tournament on earth.