Note to Fifa: the real influencers are the players.

One of the highlights of the Club World Cup was Lionel Messi blanking IShowSpeed in the tunnel before the opening game between Inter Miami and Al-Ahly. The American YouTuber posted footage of being snubbed, garnering almost 4m likes within 24 hours. Let’s hope that simply reflected approval of Messi’s refusal to be used as part of somebody else’s show. The sport is about Messi and Fabian Ruiz, starring in Pasadena for Messi’s old club PSG. The circus is about ubiquitous influencers given access most areas by Fifa to promote the competition.

Fabian Ruiz. Photo: Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images.

Messi is a professional athlete focused on the ensuing game. He’s not a walk-on part on some influencer’s streaming platform. As footballing royalty, Pepe and Youri Djorkaeff had far more right to be in the tunnel and were greeted warmly by Messi. Fifa’s desire to appeal to a younger demographic by unleashing influencers through football is understandable but not when distracting from the real performers, the reason why everyone should be there. Fifa blurs the line between the show and the sport. Nobody needs footage of Gianni Infantino before the game. Or his new best mate, IShowSpeed. They are not the centre of attraction. The players are. The fans are.

The Club World Cup is here to stay because of Infantino’s ego, Saudi money and PSR-focused clubs’ need to fund player wages. So at least make it credible. Focus on real fans’ passion. Fifa should have ignored the YouTubers and just rolled lengthy footage of Palmeiras fans in Times Square.

And focus on celebrating the footballing talent. On Messi. On Khvicha Kvaretskhelia, creator of two goals for PSG in their 4-0 defeat of Atletico Madrid. Just don’t try explaining to some Americans that he’s from Georgia. Or try some analysis of why Vitinha and Fabian Ruiz were the real class acts on display. Fabian’s performance was magnificent. He matters far, far more than some influencer.

Good people work at Fifa, people who genuinely care about the game, the sport and those who play and follow it. But does Fifa care enough as an organisation? Staging matches at midday, and temperatures rising above 30C in Pasadena for the PSG game, risks criticism of a lack of respect for players and their welfare. And fans sweltering in the stands. I covered games in Detroit, Chicago and Washington at USA 94 and the heat was painful. Heaven knows how the players coped – or didn’t as the Irish found in Miami.

Fifa needs to put players back centre stage. Let the football and the footballers do the selling. There are plenty of talented players out at the Club World Cup to weave a bewitching narrative around rather than also relying on influencers to sell the tournament. And don’t kid the fans. Don’t try and argue it was “brilliance” by Bayern Munich that accounted for their 10-0 defeat of part-timers Auckland. Clinical, yes. Doing what was expected in a mismatch, yes. Being professional, yes. But it wasn’t brilliance. Bayern didn’t need to be brilliant. Such hyperbole undermines the tournament’s attempts at credibility.

Such is the in-depth analysis of football nowadays, amongst fanbases with their forums and content channels, that attempts by Fifa to view the game through the lens of an American influencer who knows little about the sport risks ridicule. Be honest. The group stage is always going to see mismatches, so be straight about those games, knowing that the real stuff arrives in the knockout. There is a far more sophisticated football audience than Fifa is acknowledging. Unless all the coverage and content is aimed at winning over a US audience. Then again, the US market is far more informed than USA 94.

All the stories of TV producers pointing the cameras away from empty seats are damaging. Be honest. Just say you were testing out venues for the World Cup, and you would have been criticised by using smaller MLS stadia (some in use anyway) given demand for some games.

Maybe Fifa is simply wanting to get through the group stages with minimal damage before the heavyweight knockout action. A deeply sceptical English audience might tune in more when Chelsea and Manchester City get involved. But what has been highlighted so far is the gap between the world’s best and the rest. The tournament works best as an eight-team blast, fast and furious, quality over quantity. The legacy of this bloated competition will be felt in next year’s World Cup when fatigue kicks in, in European leagues when Club World Cup teams are still recovering from their summer’s exertions.

Fifa has lost focus on what is best for football. It needs reminding that the players are the stars of the show. Fifa needs a reality check as well as the ones *checks notes, checks US spelling* being written by the Saudis.

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The Club World Cup is already having a damaging effect on other competitions. It needs remembering in all the talk about who steps up from this England Under-21s generation to the seniors that many of the eligible talents are not here. Jude and Jobe Bellingham, Liam Delap, Cole Palmer, Levi Colwill, Rico Lewis and Jamie Gittens are in the US. Miles Lewis-Skelly and James Trafford went with the seniors to Barcelona and Nottingham. Adam Wharton was recovering from concussion.

There are still two of the players out here in Slovakia who look capable of stepping up, especially in areas where Emgland have struggled. Tino Livramento has impressed at left-back, and already been capped at right-back. Elliot Anderson surely makes the progression in central midfield. His work-rate and ball repossession has been much praised from his Nottingham Forest season. His passing is increasingly appreciated. Anderson threaded some clever balls behind the backlines of Czechia in the first game and Slovenia last night. Thomas Tuchel still searches for a No 6 alongside Declan Rice. Both Anderson and Livramento will surely be called up by Tuchel for the September World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia.

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The law-makers, IFAB, brought in a new law to try to stop time-wasting by goalkeepers, a welcome move. If keepers take longer than eight seconds to release the ball they get punished with a corner to the opposition. There’s little sign of it in the two games I’ve watched live out here. So either keepers are paying heed, and they were given a 30-minute briefing before the tournament, or it’s not being applied by refs. It was an issue worth addressing, especially when keepers fell on the ball, and stayed there, eating up seconds. So is time-wasting by outfield players.

Some very obvious Slovenian time-wasting went unpunished by the 33-year-old Georgian referee, Goga Kikacheishvili towards the end of the stalemate with England, including two very clear pieces of feigning injuries by outfield players. England are no strangers to the streetwise arts but some of the Slovenian rolling and head-holding was wearisome. Slovenia were exhausted and delighted to hang on for a point. There were also five separate stoppages for substitutes. Only four minutes were added on. It’s all well and good focusing on goalkeepers running the clock down but a closer eye still needs keeping on the other 20.

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Enjoy the week. I’m remaining out here in Slovakia for England’s crunch game with Germany on Wednesday. England should go through but it could be Spain in the quarters.