Come and gone, but for a while there we thought we’d never see the end of it. The beautiful game, the World Cup the pinnacle.

When the Americans get their hands on anything, it certainly becomes a show - some of it entertaining, some highly boring, like the final, and much of it just plain revolting.

This was surely the World Cup that went a step too far in many unwanted ways. Football did break out at times, in fairness, but the dominant features of this tournament about showbiz over soccer.

First off was the increased number of teams and the increase in matches just to bring in more money. Throw in extortionate ticket prices, and we were off to a bad start before a ball was even kicked.

Then came the blatant violation of the rules that saw a red-carded player allowed to play in the next game because of shameless political interference. There’s no hiding the truth that Trump’s fingerprints were all over this World Cup, culminating with his cringeful reluctance to leave the stage after the cup presentation to Spain.

A mammoth ego glorying in his centre stage position, his hold over Infantino, and his belief that he could get his own infantile way by disregarding the rules. Was anyone surprised?

The final itself was the biggest let-down of all. The writing was o the wall as Jennifer Lawrence warbled the American national anthem at the outset. No contest as Argentina just didn’t turn up for eighty minutes, boring and barely watchable.

Worse still was the major disregard for the rules as the half-time break was extended to half an hour so that the American audience would get their Super-bowl style entertainment.

After much hype that too was a let-down. Choreographed to within an inch of its life, the appearances from Shakira, Madonna and Justin Bieber were blink-and-you-miss-it moments.

Then we had the Hollywood Reporter style panning to show celebrities in the audience. Let’s all hope this is the last we see of this Americanised version of what soccer should be.

Bottom line, did we enjoy the World Cup?

Most adopted the tactic of having the game on the TV but working away on the laptop on something else at the same time. We would then look up just to watch the exciting bits, few and far between.

Who wants to watch grown men throwing themselves down on the ground, rolling in mock agony, at the slightest physical touch? We were interested, yes, entertained, no, and highly disillusioned about the path soccer, and other major sports including rugby, is taking because of commercial and political interests.

The beautiful game? Messi maybe, except for a dismal final, but the rest, far from beautiful.

Scooter ban lip service

The ban on e-scooters for under-18s is in theory to be welcomed. But it is undoubtedly, in practice, unworkable.

News that the Government was to introduce licensing and registration to treat e-scooters the same way as mechanically propelled vehicles came as little surprise earlier this week.

It followed months of lobbying and a mounting pressure that became laser-focused after it emerged that the number of children presenting with serious head injuries as a result of e-scooter accidents had more than doubled.

Under new rules, from August helmets and high-visibility clothing become mandatory for all e-scooter users, while the ban on use of e-scooters will be extended from under-16s to under-18s.

A key component of the new regulations is that further protections will be provided to members of An Garda Síochána, mirroring the system in the UK.

This will provide greater legal protections to gardaí when pursuing e-scooters and e-bikes, which have been linked to drug dealing and other criminal activity.

The sale of e-scooters to minors will also be restricted. And the Garda Commissioner has said on record that he is on board with these changes.

But while the goodwill may be there, the resources and mechanisms to police it are not. We have heard time and again how garda roads policing is falling far short of its targets, so where are the extra man hours to police e-scooters going to come from?

This is looking suspiciously like yet another example of Government paying lip service with little or no hope of being able to deliver.