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As is so often the case, FIFA led the way. Back in 2017 when football's world governing body decided to increase the number of teams competing at the World Cup from 32 to 48, its president Gianni Infantino found it easy to justify the seismic change.

"We are in the 21st century and we have to shape the World Cup of the 21st century," said Infantino of the first change since 1998 to the structure of the world's most perfect sporting event. A change that will come into effect at the next renewal, the 2026 tournament in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

"It is the future. Football is more than just Europe and South America, football is global."

Infantino, bolstered by the unanimous backing of his council, was easily able to frame this as a democratic and inclusive move, rather than the watering down of FIFA's showpiece event to bolster TV rights and secure backing in future elections, as campaign group New FIFA Now argued.

"The football fever you have in a country that qualifies for the World Cup is the biggest promotional tool for football you can have," said Infantino, ignoring the counter-argument that a bloated tournament featuring more weaker teams may struggle to retain its allure.

For the neutral viewers (among which we in this country have had to count ourselves since 2002, alas) it also becomes a less attractive product. The memorable 2022 tournament in Qatar - which was not without its own issues - consisted of 64 games. The next World Cup will feature 104 games, as will the 2030 tournament, which will bizarrely be hosted in six countries across three continents.

How quaint to think Jack Charlton qualified Ireland for a 24-team World Cup and before the 1980s it was a 16-team tournament.

It may be a trend-setter, but FIFA is not alone here. Sporting expansionism is a worldwide problem - tournaments are out of control.

This week we learned the famously lean Rugby World Cup will add four teams in 2027 to bring it to 24 participating countries.

The pool stages of this year's event featured an average scoring margin of 31.6 points per game, so it's unclear what is to be gained by admitting four more teams, other than that fuzzy ambition of "growing the game".

"This incredible Rugby World Cup 2023 tournament has demonstrated the passion and potential that lies beyond the top 10 or 12 nations," according to World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont. "If we think big and think inclusive. It is not acceptable to accept the status quo. Not acceptable to do nothing."

The cynics among us may say the next instalment in Australia will feature an extra four games (52) to figure out which one of New Zealand and South Africa will be crowned champions, while the optimists will note the introduction of a round of 16 does offer up the real prospect of Ireland winning a first-ever knockout game.

The Cricket World Cup is happening right now. Don't worry, if you've missed the first 28 group stage games there are another 17 still to be played.

The format, adopted four years ago, sees all 10 teams play each other in a league format to identify four semi-finalists. What it lacks in efficiency it gains in attractiveness for those of us who appreciate some unobtrusive background sport during our working day: one game a day for a month and a half with little enough action of consequence as of yet. Apart from defending champions England being all but eliminated.

To be fair to the International Cricket Council (ICC), the current tournament is smaller in terms of teams and games (48) than previous incarnations, which have featured up to 16 teams and 54 games. But it is going back up to 16 teams in 2027.

Of course, we are not immune to this expansionism closer to home either. The group stages of the Tailteann Cup and Sam Maguire have seen the number of Gaelic football championship matches balloon from 60 to 99 in the space of 12 months.

Coupled with splitting the season into inter-county and club-only segments it has greatly increased the number of games to be played in a more narrow window, but perhaps the GAA was one sporting organisation where the training-to-games ratio was skewed too much in favour of the former.

However the GAA have not increased the number of televised games to reflect this increase in matches, which causes problems that the likes of FIFA could not even fathom. Plus the players' union, the Gaelic Players Association, are calling for pre-season tournaments to be done away with to reduce the strain on players.

It is football however - thanks to years of obscene TV rights deals - where the most supersized supersizing has happened. Before 1980 the Euros featured four teams and perhaps Ireland's greatest footballing achievement was to qualify for the eight-team Euro 88. From 1996 to 2012 it was satisfied with 16 teams and 31 games, but since 2016 (when we last qualified) it has been a 24-team tournament with 51 games.

The European Championships will come to these shores in 2028 and there are some who would like to see it expanded to 32 teams, as 24 is not a neat number for any knockout tournament - relying as it does on ranking third-placed teams to fill the round of 16.

But when you consider there are only 55 UEFA members you can see how this is all getting out of hand.

The Champions League is another UEFA competition undergoing a mutation. From next season the tournament will adopt the 'Swiss Model' - last seen bamboozling rugby fans in the Champions Cup - resulting in four more teams (36) and SEVENTY-FOUR more games (189) than this year's competition.

Before we even get to the proposed 32-team Club World Cup you already have global union FIFPRO baulking at the 12-month schedules that see elite players like Mo Salah play 70 matches in the 2021-22 season, or young talents like Bukayo Saka flogged by club and international managers to the point where the attacker played in 87 consecutive Premier League matches for Arsenal.

Are more games what the sport needs?

Away from the questionable merit of introducing more Champions League group stage matches into the world, there are the environmental issues.

Whether it is hosts India playing in nine different cities during the pool stages of the Cricket World Cup, or planeloads of players, staff and fans flying across the Atlantic several times to mark the centenary of the first World Cup, or four more countries flying to Australia to make up the numbers at the next Rugby World Cup, all this expansion has a knock-on effect on the climate crisis.

Which brings us to post-growth economics. The theory is catching hold in recent years as the climate crisis worsens, with academics and even some politicians coming to the realisation that the quest for never-ending growth is not helpful in efforts to cut emissions and reduce reliance on carbon fuels.

At the start of the decade economic anthropologist Jason Hickel expressed the hope that "in the 2020s, we can expect that the climate movement will rally around the Green New Deal and a vision for a completely new economy".

Thus far this decade sport has proved itself to be more Reaganite than post-growth, but with even the Premier League TV rights auction - the goose that laid the golden proverbial - showing signs of a slowdown, is it likely that fans will vote with their eyeballs and their wallets?

The law of diminishing returns is another well known economic theory, known to laymen as 'too much of a good thing'.

In this respect it is likely sport is nearing its own tipping point.

Read more:
Sporting expansionism: Tournaments are out of control - RTE.ie