Fans will be the big winners in the football League of Nations

The League of Nations announcement came as a genuine shock.

It’s rare I find myself surprised by anything in football these days.

So intense is the world-wide media interest in the game, you usually hear the train coming long before it pulls into the platform.

Make no mistake, however, the announcement of the League of Nations was a genuine shock.

There was not a hint this one was coming our way. And the reason why that was the case is, I believe, as interesting as the new set-up itself. It is a complicated plan.

UEFA President Michel Platini had a go at explaining it, but I am not convinced those who heard it will have finished up any the wiser.

In essence, we are looking at the end of the international friendly. In future, all games countries play are going to count.

Countries will take on others from the same part of the world in leagues and mini leagues, with qualifying places in the European Championships up for grabs.

That is a big carrot for UEFA to dangle, and they have produced it to kill off those meaningless “challenge” games where the actual challenge is to convince players, their clubs and, of course, fans they are not a waste of time.

Clubs, and especially their managers, hate them. Why, the argument goes, put players worth fortunes at risk when there is nothing at stake?

Through this unheralded shifting of the goalposts, UEFA have effectively blindsided some of the most powerful lobbies in the game.

That is very political and, it should be said, very clever. It would be naive to think that such a radical solution was arrived at overnight.

I believe this one took quite a bit of planning, and think UEFA purposefully kept it quiet until it was all completed with good reason.

Present a controversial notion for discussion, and those who don’t like it have time to mobilise their opposition. Announce it as a done deal, and it doesn’t really matter if the clubs complain.

Generally, I think fans will be the winners from this bit of political wheeling and dealing.

There is nothing more annoying than seeing clubs barring genuinely patriotic players from representing their country.

When every game counts, that will no longer be an option open to the men who sign the pay cheques.

Of course, in grouping countries together with others of similar standing from the same region, we are going to lose some glamour.

Scotland taking on Lithuania with an outside chance of making a major Finals some way down the road isn’t a bad prospect for the Tartan Army.

But it isn’t Scotland v Brazil at Wembley either.