FIFA allows each team to call up 26 athletes for the World Cup

FIFA has raised the maximum number of players per team at the 2022 World Cup to 26, instead of the traditional 23-name list. The change was announced this Thursday (23), extending the measure introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the governing body of football, the decision was taken due to “the need to maintain additional flexibility due to the exceptionality of the 2022 World Cup dates in the international calendar and due to the effects of the pandemic on teams before and during competitions”.

UEFA had already adopted a similar measure last year, at the Eurocup, in the face of the risk of contagion by the coronavirus.

The European teams, however, were not entirely adept. Although the change offers coaches a greater number of options, it creates problems in the management of groups and in the egos of less used players. Spanish coach Luis Enrique, for example, was content to call up 24 athletes.

This expansion of the squads to 26 players for the 2022 World Cup, which will be played from November to December, takes place after the Ifab (International Football Association Board), the body that guarantees football laws, “definitely” validated the possibility of five possible substitutions per team, in each game. Before, there were three.

This change to football law 3 had been made provisionally, in May 2020, in the context of the pandemic. She was well received by the trainers and, this month, she became permanent.

Ifab members also decided to increase the maximum number of reserves on the scoresheet from 12 to 15, paving the way for 26 players to be called up.

“A maximum of 26 people (up to 15 reserves and 11 members of the coaching staff, one of whom will be the team doctor) can sit on the bench” during the World Cup, FIFA said in its statement on Thursday.