PICTURE the scene — it is prime time Saturday and the World Cup is on the box.
San Marino are taking on Angola in a group opener, while the rest of the weekend’s schedule includes Luxembourg v Kazakhstan and Faroe Islands v Libya.
Gianni Infantino’s bid to have 64 teams at the 2030 World Cup is an insult to the beautiful game Credit: AFP
The next edition of the tournament will be hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco Credit: Getty
Welcome to Gianni Infantino’s brave new world.
The Fifa president has been accused of systematically destroying football – and his latest brainwave is his most absurd yet.
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Not content with watering down this summer’s tournament with 48 teams, Infantino is now plotting to expand the 2030 World Cup to a monstrous SIXTY-FOUR countries.
It is an insult to the beautiful game. This would mean almost one in three Fifa member nations will get a pass to the biggest show on Earth.
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We will be forced to watch endless, meaningless group games while Fifa counts its broadcasting billions.
Though I suppose there is one silver lining — at least four-time champions Italy might finally qualify without suffering another humiliating play-off defeat against North Macedonia.
Make no mistake, Infantino does not care about the quality of football.
His endless expansion is not about growing the global game — it is a shameless vote-buying machine designed to keep him sitting on his Fifa throne until the end of time.
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One silver lining is that Italy would finally have a chance to qualify for a World Cup Credit: AP
As LaLiga chief Javier Tebas warned, Fifa is destroying the entire football ecosystem for a 40-day circus.
A 64-team World Cup means an absurd 128 MATCHES dragged out over six gruelling weeks. Player welfare? Don’t make me laugh.
Elite stars will be expected to run themselves into the ground playing up to 60 games for their clubs before flying across continents for a slog of group fixtures.
We already saw the warning signs this summer when Haiti, Tunisia, Iraq, Jordan, Uzbekistan and Panama all finished without a single point.Curacao and Qatar barely fared better.
If a country wants to play on the grandest stage, there is already a perfectly fair mechanism to get here — it’s called qualifying.Earn it on the pitch, lads.
But with 64 nations, can you imagine how many more meaningless qualifiers will be created, too?
And do not rule out the possibility of introducing fifth and seventh-place play-offs.
We already saw the warning signs of having extra teams after sides like Panama failed to earn a point Credit: Alamy
It sounds crazy but the way Infantino is going, anything considered ridiculous cannot be ruled out.
The leadership at the top is rotten. Infantino’s ten-year reign has become a masterclass in shameless bootlicking and corporate pandering.
Look at the utter joke of the 2030 scheduling already. Three opening matches are being staged in South America: Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
It will mark 100 years since they participated in the first competition held in Uruguay. This is before dragging teams across the Atlantic to Portugal, Spain and Morocco. All SIX automatically qualify as co-hosts, too.
Meanwhile, England — the actual home of football — have not hosted the tournament since winning it 1966.
At this rate, we will be waiting until 2066 for a measly ‘celebration game’.
And who could forget Infantino’s cringe-inducing brown-nosing?
Denied a Nobel Prize, Donald Trump was magically handed a newly manufactured ‘Fifa World Peace Prize’ by Infantino.
It was an embarrassing stunt to ingratiate himself with USA’s President.Add to that the grotesque Americanisation of the matches.
Hydration breaks in air-conditioned stadiums as a shameless excuse for TV ad breaks and a ridiculous 27-minute half-time interval in the final to have Super Bowl-style entertainment with Madonna, Shakira and Ted Lasso.
Fifa came under fire this summer for installing three-minute hydration breaks in each half Credit: Getty
And there was criticism after stars like Madonna featured in half time show during the World Cup final Credit: Getty
Football became the biggest sport on Earth because it is fast, furious and continuous.
The Americans have always wanted to chop it into quarters and clog it up with commercials, but the World Cup final has always been bigger than the Super Bowl.
I’d love a return to 16 teams with guaranteed groups of death where every single game matters.
However, I accept 32 teams as a compromise between quality and being more inclusive. But Infantino has to go.
And if Fifa won’t stop him, European heavyweights like England, France, Spain, Germany and, yes, even Italy must step up and BOYCOTT the tournament.
Without the elite nations from Europe, Infantino’s bloated 64- team circus is meaningless.
