When the hosts start writing the rules ...

Enough! Or, as my New Yorker friends might say, enough already!

First we had to put up with quarterly commercial - sorry hydration – breaks, and now football fans are being asked to endure the abomination of a 25-30 minute ‘Super Bowl-style’ interval during the final on Sunday, featuring the likes of Madonna, Justin Bieber, and Shakira!

By extending the half-time break by 10-15 minutes, Fifa is preparing to break its own rules, set by IFAB, which say no interval should last longer than 15 minutes. But, hey, who cares about the rules?

Lest we forget, Fifa is the Federation of International Football Associations, representing 211 national football associations worldwide.

The point of any federation is not only to set rules, supercharge advocacy, and organise events - but to protect the integrity of the industry (or sport) it represents. And to serve its members.

That is why Fifa's recent trajectory deserves scrutiny. The cringeworthy spectacle of the organisation handing Donald Trump its newly created 'Peace Prize' has probably been memory-wiped by most people. We're used to watching politicians make fools of themselves when dealing with the mercurial leader of the most powerful country on earth. Why should we expect any more from Gianni Infantino?

Less forgivable, perhaps, is how Fifa has allowed this kind of fawning treatment to affect the perception of how the tournament itself has been run. How it has been organised, presented, and adjudicated.

Consider the controversial introduction of hydration breaks, which turned a game of two halves, into a game of four quarters, a bit like, erm, well ... American football.

No serious person would object to measures designed to protect players in extreme conditions, yet it would be naïve to ignore the commercial reality. Analysts have estimated that the hydration breaks could net $250m in advertising revenues in the US alone and $1bn worldwide. Broadcasters, not Fifa, will collect those revenues, but a precedent has been set, and the more commercial opportunities are embedded within the game, the more valuable future media rights become. It's worth noting, that hydration breaks have been applied to every match - even those taking place in air-conditioned venues. Yet, by the end of the tournament, it’s likely that none of the games will have met Fifa’s threshold for hydration breaks - a wet bulb global temperature (WBGT) of 32°C (the players’ union Fifpro advocates for a lower safety threshold of 28°C).

And then there’s the question of governance.

The controversy surrounding the overturning of a red card shown to USA forward Folarin Balogun may appear trivial, in hindsight, especially once the hosts were knocked out. But the apparent favouring of a host-nation player following the intervention of POTUS raised the hackles not just of pundits, ex-players, and supporters, but of Fifa’s own members. The Royal Belgium Football Association was considering legal action against Fifa before thumping the hosts 4-1. Meanwhile UEFA – the Union of European Football Associations – accused Fifa of ‘crossing a red line’ saying the decision was ‘unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable’.

For this World Cup, Fifa has embraced premium hospitality programmes, luxury ticketing packages and sponsorship arrangements on a scale previously unseen. The organisation expects revenue exceeding $13bn across the current commercial cycle, making this the most lucrative period in its history. Commercial success is not the problem, of course. Football's governing body should seek to maximise revenues that can be reinvested in the game. The difficulty arises when commercial considerations begin shaping the product itself.

The willingness of Fifa to significantly increase the length of the half-time interval is a case in point. Like hydration breaks, this decision, seemingly taken unilaterally, tramples over the natural rhythms of the game and will be alien to most football fans for whom the match is the spectacle.

The lesson extends well beyond football. Every international federation faces the same considerations. Wealthy hosts bring investment, sponsorship, political support and commercial opportunity. In return, they often expect influence. Sometimes that influence is explicit: more often it emerges through a series of accommodations. The danger lies in the cumulative effect, when a tweak here, a tweak there, changes the character of the thing itself.

Fifa should remember that host destinations are temporary custodians of a tournament. The moment a governing body allows hosts to influence formats, presentations, even rules and standards, it ceases to lead.

For Fifa, that is the real risk. Football is always changing. For good, for bad. The question is: what happens when the body entrusted with leading the game loses the power to decide how those changes are made? When it cedes too much power to the hosts?