After so many years of Fifa being run by a man who didn’t have both oars in the water, I was actually taken aback last week when the new man at the helm came out with what might actually be a good idea.

Organisation president Gianni Infantino, who seems to be settling into the job quite nicely after a shaky start, suggested that future World Cup finals could see 48 teams taking part.

The way this would work is relatively simple: 16 seeded teams would have guaranteed places in the group stage of the finals while another 32 teams would take part in play-offs to claim the other 16 group places.

Infantino says the idea is to open up the world’s biggest football party to more teams.

“Fifa’s idea is to develop football in the whole world, and the World Cup is the biggest event there is. It’s more than a competition, it’s a social event,” he said.

So far, the proposal has had a mixed reception. Teams like Scotland have welcomed it, saying anything that helps them make it to the finals has to be good thing.

However, others, like Germany coach Joachim Low, have said this will end up diluting the quality of the finals.

Personally I am all for it.

There are, in my opinion at least, a couple of reasons why Low’s warning is slightly misguided.

Firstly, the main competition will still be between the 32 nations who ultimately deserve to be there, so nothing really changes in that respect.

More importantly, however, is that Infantino’s suggestion isn’t even that revolutionary if you think about it carefully.

Many of the different qualifying zones already run a play-off system anyway. Take Europe, for example. For the 2018 tournament, only the nine group winners are guaranteed a place in the finals. Then the best eight runners-up go into play-offs to see who will secure the remaining places in Russia.

What Infantino seems to be suggesting is that instead of only playing off against other European teams, these runners-up would play against others from around the globe. And instead of playing these games on home soil, they would be played as a sort of preliminary round at the finals themselves.

So from a structural point of view, it is not that big a change. A lot of logistical work would need to be done, but nothing an organisation the size of Fifa can’t deal with.

There are some doubts among people I have been speaking to over whether or not fans would be prepared to go all the way to wherever the finals were being hosted for what might be a single game.

And I can see why they have doubts.

Infantino seems to have come up with a concept that has mileage. A sharp contrast to his predecessor who, between overseeing the worst and most corrupt period in Fifa’s history, came out with some stunningly bad ideas

But don’t supporters fly to some pretty obscure places to watch the Champions League final? Often thousands of miles from home? Surely most international teams would be able to bring enough fans to fill a stadium for a game of such magnitude.

If Malta ever managed to finish second in a qualifying group and booked their place in these play-offs, don’t you think we could rustle up 10,000 or 20,000 fans to take to wherever? I’m pretty sure we could. Air Malta would take us all for free, I’m sure! And the government would pay for our accommodation!

Having said that, maybe Fifa could tweak the idea a bit and make it a two-legged play-off with games a couple of days apart. If they can work out the logistics on one game, I’m pretty sure two wouldn’t make their spreadsheets melt.

All in all, Infantino seems to have come up with a concept that has mileage. A sharp contrast to his predecessor who, between overseeing the worst and most corrupt period in Fifa’s history, came out with some stunningly bad ideas.

We all remember his suggestion that games should be divided into four quarters to get more television adverts in, right? And how about when he said goalposts should be made bigger so more goals are scored? Or what about when he said the best way for women’s football to gain popularity would be for them to wear shorter shorts? Or when he wanted to scrap the offside rule?

Looking back on it now, it’s hard to imagine it took a corruption scandal to bring Sepp Blatter down… he should have been made to resign on grounds of diminished mental capacity years ago.

Spurs too hot for Pep

Watching Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester City last weekend was quite an eye-opener.

It’s not just that they beat Pep Guardiola’s expensively assembled team, but the way they did it – Mauricio Pochettino essentially out-pepped Pep.

The Spaniard has been known throughout his career for teams that play fast-paced, attacking, possession-based football.

But Spurs beat them in every single one of those departments last Sunday, even having the luxury of being able to miss a penalty on the way to a remarkably comfortable win.

Pochettino’s team are now the only unbeaten side in the Premier League and, although we all know that statistic won’t last, they are definitely proving they are a force to be reckoned with.

Before the season started I thought Spurs might not be up to the challenge. I didn’t think they had brought in enough fresh blood over the summer to mount another, more serious title challenge.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the cunning Argentinean knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe he was aware of the strength of his squad and knew a few additions were all that was needed.

It’s still early days, of course, and there is a lot more Premier League football to be played over the coming seven months.

But the early season signs are very encouraging for Spurs who don’t even seem to be missing the injured Harry Kane.

When Guardiola announced in the build-up to the match that he thought Pochettino was one of the best managers in the world, I thought he was just employing some slightly twisted mind games.

Turns out he may just have been speaking the truth.

How not to retire

They say you can’t keep a good man down. The same seems to apply to Neil Warnock.

I joke, of course. I have a lot of admiration for Warnock who is one of the best old-school, no-nonsense managers in the English game.

But you have to admit he doesn’t seem to have grasped the concept of retirement very well.

A few years ago Warnock said he was done with football and was going to enjoy a quiet and peaceful retirement with his family.

Since then he has stepped in to manage Queens Park Rangers on a temporary basis, became a local hero at Rotherham United when he saved them from relegation last season and was last week appointed as the new manager of Cardiff City.

Not quite the retirement plan Mrs Warnock had in mind, you would imagine.

It isn’t surprising that chairmen, in their hour of need, turn to a man who has managed 14 different clubs across every division of English football, winning promotion seven times in the process.

Not only does he have the experience, he also has an excellent track record of either saving teams or promoting them. And that makes him all the more valuable to clubs like Cardiff.

Love him or loathe him – and because he is so outspoken there are plenty of people in football who fall into the latter camp – the English game will be a lot poorer when he really does call it a day.

I suspect though, with his brand of management in such high demand, it will be a while yet before Mrs Warnock gets to spend any extra quality time with her husband.

Then again, if he acts at home like he does in the dugout, it might well be her persuading him to take these jobs…

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade