EARLY DOORS
With a minimum of 25 matches still to be played before the 2024 winners of the biggest prize in American men’s soccerball are identified, Sunday’s announcement that Inter Miami will be handed the “host nation” spot that is up for grabs at next summer’s all-singing, all-dancing and newly bloated Fifa Club World Cup came as something of a surprise. At least it did until it became apparent that it was a decision made by the tournament organisers. We implore you to fasten your seatbelts, reader, because Gianni Infantino is at it again. While the shiny-domed Fifa chief is invariably up to something when it comes to commercial opportunism and the cause of personal advancement, his declaration that Miami had “qualified” for the tournament via a process for which there were no obvious criteria beyond having Lionel Messi in their squad seemed a little cheeky, even by his snakebelly-low standards.
