If FIFA smell cash anything can happen...

FIRSt there were two, then three, then four – and now heaven knows how many.

When the South American pitch for the 2030 World Cup was first mooted, the plan was to return the tournament’s centenary edition to where it all began: Uruguay.

Except Uruguay was not considered big enough to handle a modern World Cup so the competition would be shared with their neighbours across River Plate, Argentina. then Paraguay joined in — and last month, Chile.

At that point, the area covered was roughly 4.12million square kilometres. But it gets better. For now there is talk of a tie-up between South America and the ConCACAF region.

At first look, this would seem unlikely as ConCACAF are already hosting the 2026 tournament in the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Yet don’t forget this is FIFA: the organisation who corruptly voted for a summer World Cup in Qatar with 32 teams, and are now planning to deliver a winter World Cup in Qatar, oman and Kuwait with 48 teams — while not even offering a new vote. So anything and everything is in play.

Including the first World Cup to take place across confederations and continents, with everexpanding numbers of hosts and qualifiers.

And if FIFA smell money, that’s exactly what will happen. REMEMBER the 2012 European Championship? How we were all wrong about Ukraine? That their fans did not have a dangerous racist element? That we were the xenophobes for even thinking it? Try telling that to Callum Hudson-Odoi.