The 48-team World Cup: How Gianni Infantino's crazy scheme would work - and what will REALLY happen

Infantino made the expansion of the tournament to 40 teams one of the pillars of his campaign when he ran for the top job in football. And that was a clever move: by being as vague as possible about where the eight extra teams would come from, he no doubt won votes from delegates across the world, whether from horrifyingly under-represented Asia and Africa or from perennially-disappointed sides such as Scotland.

On top of that, how could such an idea lose? The World Cup is great, everyone loves it, plus it makes a shed-load of money. Who wouldn't want more? And an extra eight teams in the tournament probably sounded reasonable without being too unsettling to the format.

It comes down to the pesky maths of setting up a knockout stage of the tournament. Eight, 16, 32 and 64 are the numbers that work well; numbers such as 24, 36 and 40 really don't, since you end up having to fudge the numbers to get the 'best' third-placed group finishers into the last-16.

It can be done, of course, but you end up with a hideously-confusing mess. Take the 24-team Euro 2016 tournament, for example: Eurosport's most-read story of the tournament was an in-depth explanation of how third-placed teams could grab a spot.

Oh yes. Infantino himself admitted as much: "From a sporting point of view it is ideal to have 32 countries, while 48 is complicated…. The World Cup is very well organised in its system of competition with 32 countries, groups and classifications for the second round, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final."

Yes. And it's a pretty stupid one. "The idea is to be 16 seeded countries and a first phase of 32 countries, with a direct elimination game to advance and continue the normal World Cup with 32, but 48 teams go to the party."

In other words, they'd more or less mimic the Champions League group stage: 16 seeded teams would go straight into the group stage, while a further 16 would have to come through a play-off round that takes place in the World Cup host nation before the tournament proper. It would be nice for some, a pain for others: in 2013, for example, Jordan had to play Uruguay in a play-off for the final spot at the 2014 World Cup. That sort of game would become part of the tournament itself.

Ha! That's a good one! You made me chuckle there.

Because this is international football we're talking about. Billions of dollars in TV rights will hinge upon which teams go straight into the group stage. You can bet there will be some sort of arcane system based on "coefficients" which will make sure the so-called "big" nations get guaranteed seats at the top table.

Probably not – after all, nobody wants to see England go out in a penalty shoot-out before the tournament has even begun. But while the Eurovision Song Contest unashamedly keeps in the nations that stump up the most cash, there's something grubby about doing the same thing in a sporting context. The Champions League seedings now have little credibility, and so it will be with the World Cup. And the one thing that might harm the tournament is turning it into an elite "winners' club" based on TV revenue.

So would double-width goals and pink footballs that made squeaky noises when they were kicked. It doesn't mean they should be used for football's greatest event.

And at the moment, there are already play-offs across the globe for the final spots at the World Cup; effectively, all this would do is move those matches to the host nation. But isn't it better that those play-offs are two-legged affairs played out in front of packed stadiums full of rowdy fans? Ask yourself how many Parguayans, Jordanians or Indonesians will travel to Qatar to watch what would probably be a one-off play-off match for them at the World Cup? Without the guarantee of three group stage matches to see, it'd be incredibly hard to justify that sort of trip.

Nope. The genie is out of the bottle now, and having promised expansion, Infantino is bound to deliver expansion. The clubs and leagues won't like it much as it'll cut yet further into the season every fourth summer, but thankfully FIFA don't (yet) have to care too much about complaints from those quarters.

This is where Infantino has been extremely clever: he's effectively admitted that this proposal is a non-starter, even as he made it: "This is an idea, but not definitive. Ideas are to reconsider and find the best. It will all be discussed this month and will be decided in January 2017. They are ideas that are released to see if anyone has a better idea."

The KISS principle will apply: namely "keep it simple, stupid". There are really only two ways of doing it.

If FIFA decide on 40 teams at the tournament, all be thrown straight into the group stage which will see eight expanded groups of five teams each instead of four. The top two from each group will form the last-16, just as they do at the moment.

There will be a bit of resistance – as the Rugby World Cup has found, uneven numbers in the groups inevitably means some teams getting extra rest ahead of matches; but rest and recuperation in rugby is a huge issue, while in football it is statistically pretty meaningless, as this analysis shows. And the benefit – an extra guaranteed match per team – will delight TV companies, even if the quality of the fixtures might take a hit.

Don't rule out eight groups of six teams each – though playing five group stage matches would start to get ridiculous, as the Cricket World Cup has found. More likely, there will be 12 groups of four (12!), with the top two sides from each going plus eight third-placed teams going into a last-32 knockout.

Yes. Yes it will. But don't even try to pretend that you won't still watch, and love, every second of it.