This is it, the big one. The one that nobody could have ever seen coming. No, not the departure of Eddie Howe as Newcastle manager. The attempt to sell FIFA’s crown jewel. Cash grab or master stroke? Depends if you are Gianni Infantino or not. Issue 120. Go.

The World Cup is supposed to be sacrosanct. It is the one thing in football that should sit above all of the usual arguments about money, ownership and commercialisation, because FIFA do not actually pay anything for the players who make the tournament what it is.

Yes, there are solidarity payments and compensation paid to clubs whose players appear at FIFA tournaments, but the World Cup as an entity is not FIFA's to sell. It belongs to football, it belongs to the nations, it belongs to the players and, ultimately, it belongs to the supporters who have made it what it is.

Yet Gianni Infantino now appears to be trying to turn it into something that can be packaged up and sold to private equity. The reported $40m payments to nations that vote the proposal through look, at best, like an extraordinary attempt to buy political support and, at worst, like disguised bribes.

These are the very nations being asked to approve a fundamental change to the way the World Cup is commercially structured, and they are being offered tens of millions of dollars for doing so.

And Infantino does not appear to be stopping there. He wants the World Cup to become a 64-team tournament at the earliest opportunity and this is no longer some theoretical idea that can be dismissed as a proposal being floated around FIFA.

It has now moved into the process of being seriously considered, and the timing is particularly interesting given that a larger World Cup means more games, more broadcast rights, more commercial inventory and ultimately an even bigger asset for private equity to invest in.

That is where UEFA have finally pushed back, and they have not simply issued another statement expressing their displeasure with FIFA. They have reportedly said that European nations will boycott FIFA-led tournaments if this goes through, and that would mean the World Cups for both men and women as well as the FIFA Club World Cup.

Suddenly, what looked like a straightforward attempt by Infantino to use FIFA's enormous voting bloc to push through a commercial revolution becomes something much more complicated.

Because FIFA may have the votes, but UEFA have the money and they have the football. UEFA do not have the size of voting bloc required to stop this on their own, but a World Cup without European nations would be of little or no value to private equity.

What exactly are they investing in if the tournament does not contain Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, England, Italy, the Netherlands and the rest of the continent's major footballing nations?

That is the weakness in Infantino's current position. He can potentially get enough votes to push the proposal through, but the value of the World Cup is not created by those votes.

The value is created by the players, the nations, the audiences, the broadcasters and the commercial markets that make the tournament the biggest sporting event on the planet, and Europe is at the heart of all of that.

Which means the really interesting question is what other confederations can help UEFA. Both CONCACAF and the AFC have made their own stance known and are not in favour of what FIFA are trying to do, but they have not gone as far as UEFA and threatened a boycott.

That means they could still be open to being tempted, or effectively paid off, if the sums being offered were large enough to make the decision worthwhile.

CAF and CONMEBOL are arguably even more ripe for plucking from Infantino's perspective. Not only could they receive the $40m payments that have been reported, but they would suddenly have a far greater spotlight in international football if European nations were not at the World Cup.

Take Europe out and the relative importance of Africa and South America immediately increases, both politically and on the pitch.

This is why this could become a civil war inside football, or it could become Infantino's last ever act as FIFA president. If UEFA are serious about this, do they put the PSG chairman Nasser Al-Khelaifi forward as their candidate in the next FIFA presidential election and try to force some form of unity vote against Infantino?

Even then, however, UEFA have the same problem: they have the heavyweight nations and the financial power, but they do not necessarily have the voting bloc required to simply take control of FIFA.

But perhaps UEFA do not need FIFA in the way that FIFA needs UEFA. UEFA have the heavyweight nations, the Champions League, the European Championship, the broadcasters, the sponsors and the money.

They do not really need the World Cup per se, because there is nothing stopping them from creating a 32-team European Championship or even some form of European "World Championship" every two or four years.

It would not technically be the World Cup, but if you had the best European nations and the best players in the world playing in it, would private equity really care what it was called? Would broadcasters care? Would supporters care?

Would the commercial value really be that far away from what FIFA is currently offering?

And then we get to the question of whether this is the final fracture of football. Has Infantino been cosying up to Donald Trump throughout the World Cup and either taking inspiration from the POTUS or, more directly, taking influence from him?

The relationship between the two has been extraordinary, and the fact that the World Cup has just been staged in North America could be a precursor to what future tournaments look like.

Because if Spain and Portugal are part of the 2030 World Cup boycott, then who hosts the tournament? It is far too big for Morocco to host alone, especially if the 64-team plan gathers even more momentum, which itself appears to be becoming increasingly linked to the battle over getting the private-equity proposal through.

So does this become a US capture of the World Cup? Does the United States become the financial and political centre of the tournament through a combination of private equity, repeated hosting and the sheer size of its commercial market?

And if everything is driven by more money, more games, more markets and more exposure, why would it stop at four years?

Why not more teams? Why not more games? Why not more tournaments? Why not more investment? Why not more American hosting? Once the World Cup becomes something that private equity can invest in, the logic becomes more, more, more because that is what investment is designed to do.

Everyone thought the European Super League was the fracture that was going to shape the game in a completely different mould, but then it collapsed in rather quick and real time before everyone's eyes.

There was a period of calm over the past few years, with the expansion of the Champions League helping to ward off the threat and giving the biggest European clubs more of what they wanted without fundamentally breaking the existing structure.

But nobody could have expected this sensational ploy by Infantino. Nobody expected the biggest threat to the existing structure to come from FIFA itself, with the governing body attempting to commercialise the biggest tournament in the world and potentially put its future into the hands of private capital.

And perhaps the most extraordinary part of all is that this move makes UEFA the good guys by proxy, which given UEFA's record is far from easy to do. Imagine being so disgusted by what FIFA are attempting that the traditional kingpins of football corruption are turning their back and effectively saying that this has gone too far.

That is the scale of it. That is the enormity of it.

This is no longer just another fight between Infantino and UEFA, and it is no longer just a debate about whether the World Cup should have 48 teams or 64. It is about whether the World Cup is still football's tournament or whether it has become an asset that FIFA can sell, expand and monetise however it wants.

Infantino may have the votes. He may have the money to distribute. He may have the support of enough nations to push the proposal through. But if UEFA can persuade enough of the other confederations to stand with them, and if European nations really are prepared to walk away from FIFA competitions, then the biggest tournament in football could suddenly become something very different.

The World Cup without Europe would be a World Cup in name only.

And if that is where this ends, then perhaps the European Super League was not the fracture that changed football after all. Perhaps it was simply the warning shot for what comes next.

I think any other news piece plays second fiddle to the FIFA war that is currently unfolded, but at the same time I could not ignore the news on Tyneside as Eddie Howe has called time on his stint as Newcastle manager.

Did we predict this?

Now, if you read last Friday’s issue of the newsletter, you will remember that I unveiled the update of my Premier League Managerial Pressure Index or Pressure Points

As you can see the model concluded that Eddie Howe was the manager feeling the most pressure before the start of the campaign and it seems as if that pressure was just a little too much for him.

Admittedly, the timing of Howe’s departure was something of a surprise. Many believed that if he was to depart from St James’ Park it would be part way through the season and not necessarily of his own choosing.

So although I cannot say that the model directly predicted the timing of Howe’s departure, it did suggest that change could not be all that far away either. First time lucky, or proof of concept for the season ahead?

In terms of Howe’s reasoning. you get the feeling that it has all been stacking up since Newcastle lost to Sunderland for the second time last season. That was the forward motion for the disappointment then generated by missing out on Europe.

Those two factors already in place before Newcastle’s summer sale began and although we do not know directly whether the Bruno Guimaraes links to Arsenal are serving as the last straw, there almost seems to be resignation to that before Howe’s own.

In time, Howe will be lauded as one of Newcastle’s best ever managers. Finally ending the club’s 70-year trophy drought will have boosted his stock as will two Champions League tilts in the past three seasons.

However, the frustrations with PSR seemingly took Newcastle as far as they could go under Howe. Maybe as far as they can go under any manager, that now is the concern for his likely replacement Matthias Jaissle.

Whether he buys in to the Geordie psyche as quickly as Howe or even at all remains to be seen and if he doesn’t, a difficult job suddenly becomes even more difficult for the current Al-Ahli boss.

Now that a new season is on the horizon. I wanted to take a moment to ask for your help.

The Real Football Filter has now reached Issue 120.

That is more than a year of publishing twice a week, analysing the money, media, performance and power shaping the modern game.

The biggest challenge has not been finding things to write about. Football, thankfully, continues to provide endless stories.

The challenge has been making sure more people find it.

So if you have enjoyed reading, whether it is the first issue you have opened or you have been here since the beginning, I would really appreciate you sharing it with someone who you think would enjoy it.

Not because numbers are everything, but because the best newsletters grow through recommendation.

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