THERE is a curious aspect to international week/weeks.

It is not just that the hose attached to the angst mobile is regularly pointed in Scotland’s direction. It is not just that Wayne Rooney has that spectacular ability to make headlines particularly when he is not playing. (Like a high end Joey Barton). It is not even that I can spend a ridiculous proportion of my holiday time watching Albania v Spain

It is this: many fans find it a distraction and pine for the return of club football.

There are those who follow their national team with a fervency and a faithfulness but there are many now who find international football as attractive as your Auntie Senga the night she discovered Babycham and lost her dentures.

Now, I am an old-style Scotland fan, though my resilience is weakening. But Scotland matches were once a staple of the season. My best memories are losing the heel to a platform shoe at Hampden when we qualified against Czechoslovakia (now we get humped by a daud of it) and losing a motor (a Toyota Corolla, since you ask) on a visit to Wembley in the seventies.

Then it was all Hampden Roar, cheap fortified wine, world-class players and qualification for finals. That is a foursome that no longer applies.

But other countries, with less reason, seem to find the international weeks something of a chore. There is the odd attractive fixture but the card is jam-packed with dross. Most of this week’s fixture list would have needed to be injected with methamphetamine to have any sense of life. Attendances are generally poor. I have witnessed a bigger queue for the bar at a wedding than the Slovakia crowd against Scotland.

It was thus impossible not to be intrigued by Gianni Infantino’s plan to increase the World Cup to 48 teams (Stewart Regan is lobbying for 192), Mr Infantino, as FIFA president, holds some power but the most radical push may come from the clubs.

They are in love with international football in the same way as Donald Trump is in thrall to morality. What other business loans out their prime assets at low cost for no discernible financial advantage? Do Ferrari have weeks in the season when they hand out their cars and say nary a word when they are returned with scrapes and dents and the fuel tank heading to empty?

The most rational option for the clubs would be to have World Cup seeds so that the top players do not have to leave their clubs for a 17-hour flight to Minsk before a home game with their title challengers. This would cause much gnashing of wallies but essentially it is the template for the revamped Champions League.

The problem for both UEFA and FIFA, who both make vast wads of money from the European Championships and the World Cup, is that this would diminish publicity in the build-up. The more pressing issue for them, however, is that clubs are becoming extraordinarily powerful, increasingly owned by businessmen who demand a return and seek to develop mammoth markets in such as China.

The most dramatic change in football in the millennium has been the upsurge in broadcast fees, the rise in sponsorship and the significance of branding. Top football clubs can now make a lot of money. Once they were run as vanity projects or even charities by local businessmen. No longer.

The rise and rise of the English Premier League has been marked by the number of foreign businessmen who invested heavily, anticipating an extraordinary return. Some are astonished at the very concept of international football as it denies them weekends of revenues and endangers the well-being of their prime assets.

The football world is thus braced for substantial change. Infantino may have been clever, giving lower ranked sides the chance to play in World Cups and thus ensuring their support. But the game is moving so quickly that nothing can be assured except that the big clubs will do everything to corral the big bucks. This is what big businesses do.

They may also be encouraged by the enthusiastic support of a section of their fans. It was impossible to move in social media this week without being buttonholed by a supporter decrying international football. Its relative demise may be less mourned than many in authority believe.

The reality is that football has moved into the first rank of the entertainment business. The World Cup and the European Championships have a lucrative future as brands so they will survive. But qualification campaigns have no appeal to clubs, limited benefit to players and, increasingly, are in search of an audience.

The likelihood is that the scramble for the finals will be left to minor nations to contest while the major countries organise the odd friendly match between themselves in Beijing or Doha to prepare for their guaranteed slot in the finals.

The gap between the rich and the poor is not a club matter, increasingly it is a matter for countries, for domestic leagues. Associations, such as the SFA, are desperate for major finals money in the way that Celtic crave Champions League riches.

But, as we have witnessed this week, qualification for the major finals is not easy. It may soon become more difficult.