It says something for the enduring madness of Gianni Infantino and his band of cronies that they pulled off an impressive feat yesterday — the relegation of Jurgen Klopp to second place in the daily battle for football’s most absurd idea.
Klopp raised eyebrows with his hopes for a replay with Tottenham; Infantino raised a bar in FIFA’s ongoing vandalism of the World Cup.
If the plans he announced yesterday are ratified next year, then the 2030 edition, which has already been bloated to 48 teams, will be staged in Morocco, Spain and Portugal after a three-game preamble across Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay.
Six hosts, three continents, six automatic qualifiers where once there was one, and the thickness of two short planks on display from those who came up with the proposal.
The creation of a joint bid from Spain, Portugal and Morocco was troubling in its own right for the banding of three nations from two continents — but the tacking on of Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay reeks of a clumsy pacification that will invite scrutiny.
Morocco, Spain and Portugal are set to host the 2030 World Cup, with 2022 winners Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay set to stage the first three games of the tournament
The proposal would see the tournament’s opener take place in Uruguay – who won the first World Cup in 1930 – before games in South American countries Argentina and Paraguay
The disregard for supporters and the welfare of players is astonishing. Travelling to Buenos Aires from Europe or North Africa could be a 12,000-mile round trip, costing fortunes and sapping the atmosphere that builds in single-nation tournaments. It is a strange decision that runs counter to logic, and as such, it raises the question of why? With FIFA’s reputation so abjectly filthy and established over so many scandals, one can only speculate at their reasoning.
‘In a divided world, FIFA and football are uniting,’ Infantino said yesterday. That was his take. Another would be that he made more sense in Qatar last year, when he described himself as a disabled migrant worker who happened to be gay and female.
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