It has been almost a decade since Gianni Infantino swept into power as FIFA president. Like a frog in a pot being brought to the boil, the fundamental changes made to the sport during his reign have been so gradual you may not have noticed the totality of the impact, unless you somehow climb out of the pot and take the time to reflect.

We’ll start with the obvious: the World Cup’s expansion to 48 teams, which makes it practically impossible for any one nation to host alone. Unless, of course, you are Saudi Arabia, in which case you can.

The new-look FIFA Club World Cup is now a thing, too, every four years, despite howls of protest about the game’s increasingly jammed schedule.

Teams can now use five substitutes, up from three, a response to the fixture congestion created by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’ll never go back.

Then there was the introduction of VAR in 2016, something Infantino’s predecessor, Sepp Blatter, was against. Its remit was supposed to be for “clear and obvious errors” only, but now there is talk that it could be used at the World Cup to adjudicate whether corner kicks have been correctly awarded. It won’t stop there.

And now, for Infantino’s next trick: the introduction of mandatory mid-match advertising breaks - sorry, “hydration breaks” - which will effectively turn what is famously known as a game of two halves into one of four quarters.

Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino at the World Cup draw.Credit: AP

There are already........

© Brisbane Times