WHAT should be a celebration of the global game, a chance for a new and intriguing showcase of football’s rich variation and diversity, is turning into something of a farce.

Fifa has handled the introduction of the expanded Club World Cup badly, from its courting of another oppressive host nation that has immigration enforcement targeting football fans at games, to its match day ticketing and venue choices.

What could have been an encouraging start to a reminder of football’s omnipresence, and that historic teams exist outside the same regurgitated leagues of content marketing and transfer stories, has instead been littered with controversy and indifference.

In truth, any brand-new tournament, regardless of organisational competence, was always going to be met with scepticism in what is increasingly an oversaturated, overworked world of association football.

But international club competition is a good idea, and not a new one.

As the laws of association football spread around the globe in the late 1800s, teams in different parts of the world developed their own interpretations of this social, adaptable game that encourages creativity and improvisation as well as physical fitness and wellbeing.

Ever since then, there has been a desire for teams that grew out of various types of communities to test each other against international opposition and showcase their way of playing the sport.

Since the early 1900s, European teams have toured the Americas and vice versa. Those running the clubs, and the players playing for them, sought to exhibit their identity and skill in foreign lands.

International club tournaments emerged naturally, from early competitions such as the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy in 1909, to the precursor of the Club World Cup, the Intercontinental Cup, which ran from 1960 to 2004. Such global challenges are a natural development of the game.

In some ways, an expanded global club tournament is long overdue. The natural progression of international club football to this big-tournament setup has arrived surprisingly late in the day.

As a result of this, it arrives at a moment when players and clubs already have a packed schedule.

Domestic leagues and regional confederations have squeezed everything they can out of the game, from the energy of the players to sponsorship and TV money, and they’re still looking for more.

The expanded Club World Cup arrives at a time of unhealthy over-saturation and concentration of wealth, as the sport reflects wider global inequality.

The overworking of players is not solely the fault of the Club World Cup. It just happens to be the last to arrive, so it is immediately called out as being the first that should depart.

We’ve seen additional games added to the Uefa Champions League with a group stage that now runs into January, and in North America, MLS and Liga MX created an entirely new mid-season tournament between themselves called the Leagues Cup.

Domestic leagues are reluctant to lessen the players’ workload, and clubs not involved in the Club World Cup will be embarking on a combination of post-season and pre-season summer tours anyway.

Club owners, league administrators, and confederation leaders are all looking to get the biggest percentage possible of the money on offer.

And there is plenty of money on offer for these teams at the Club World Cup, which has a prize pot of $1 billion (£738.2m.)

If the prize money reaches beyond the individual teams involved in the Club World Cup to the others in their respective leagues, other regions could begin to catch up with the European powerhouses and maybe begin to retain some of their best players.

At the moment, most teams around the globe serve as talent factories for European sides, and it would be good if a global competition helped stop that trend and even saw some movement in the opposite direction.

The problem is, in football, as in politics, the oft-promised trickle-down of money rarely happens in reality, and in football, this could have substantial negative effects.

The football ecosystem is delicate in many areas across the world, and a huge cash injection for just a handful of teams could have serious negative and unbalancing effects.

Solidarity payments and fair TV money distribution are vital at the domestic level, and their effect is amplified at a global level.

Many teams are just not used to receiving such large sums in prize money, and unbalanced distribution of this money could seriously distort domestic leagues around the world by giving a small number of teams even more money.

When the prize money is as big as it is at the Club World Cup, with several million going to each team just for taking part, it could massively upset the football economy.

In offering large sums to encourage the already rich European clubs to take part, Fifa will likely negatively affect leagues in the nations that would already have taken this tournament seriously anyway.

Fifa states that: “In addition to the prize money for the participating teams, there is an unprecedented solidarity investment programme where we have a target of an additional $250m (£1.8m) being provided to club football across the world. This solidarity will undoubtedly provide a significant boost in our ongoing efforts in making football truly global.”

But football is already global. The sport’s governing body just needs to realise it has a genuine chance to share out some of its reserves and distribute tournament income fairly and sustainably, but there is little trust or evidence that it will be able to do so.

Some teams will see this as an opportunity to measure themselves competitively against teams from nations they wouldn’t normally face, others from Europe will see it merely as something that will help them with financial fair play, profitability and sustainability rules.

It’s sad that a competition which should offer unusual, intriguing tests, and an infusion of football cultures to a new and potentially fascinating tournament, is being overshadowed by the game’s existing problems and new ones created by Fifa and its new favourite host country.

Finding a good host nation is becoming an increasingly impossible task, but Fifa likes to seek out the very worst of the bad bunch.

That this tournament takes place in the hostile environment of the United States, and is sponsored by Saudi Arabia’s  Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign wealth fund of a repressive authoritarian state, sums it up.

There’s every chance the Club World Cup could grow in popularity over time. As it does so, it would help if those running it and those involved in football governance at continental and domestic levels recognise the need for space in a currently cramped calendar and the need for better distribution in a game that is currently unfair.

But that would involve them all working together for the benefit of the game, its clubs, its leagues, its players, fans, and the grassroots.

As they scramble for larger percentages of the money swilling around the game, the competition between those running the game at various levels, who are supposed to be custodians and organisers but have turned into profiteers and politicians, increasingly threatens to ruin the competition where it matters — on the pitch.