Infantino’s plan is so infantile...

MEET the new boss, same as the old boss.

If you thought FIFA was going to be a more credible organisation under Gianni Infantino (below), then you might have to think again.

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the 48-team World Cup. FORTY-EIGHT nations. The 48-team option is the format most likely to be introduced for the 2026 World Cup.

There would be a 32-team play-off round to start it, meaning 16 teams will go home after just one game, while the other 16 join 16 seeded countries in the group stage.

Even by FIFA standards, it’s a truly ridiculous idea.

How can we top the farce of taking the World Cup to Qatar? Make it so that half the world gets to the finals. Even it is for one day.

President Infantino, though, is all for an expanded tournament, saying there was a “positive” feeling towards expansion from councillors.

As if representatives of any football association are going to turn down a better chance of making the finals.

It’s a Blatter-esque populist policy, sweetening up the smaller federations as a vote-winner for when the next election comes around.

Still, Infantino has promised the bidding process for 2026 – whatever format it takes – will be “absolutely transparent and bulletproof”.

And, of course, we all believe that.

AT a Football Association council meeting last week, Martin Glenn apparently suggested market research had shown a lot of fans would favour the total abolition of FA Cup replays.

Presumably, the market researchers only accosted punters outside Old Trafford, the Emirates, White Hart Lane, etc, etc.

I bet they were not outside the humble abodes of the clubs trying to battle their way through the fourth round of qualifying this weekend.

Replays have already gone for the quarter-finals from this season.

But to get rid of them for the early rounds would be another boot into the body of a grand, old competition that has already a taken a kicking from those supposed to guard its traditions.