NEW YORK – “Thank you to Fifa for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice!”
You can probably tell who that quote is attributable to, but if you hadn’t guessed, it comes from a Donald Trump post on X after USA striker Folarin Balogun had his World Cup red card suspended so that he can play against Belgium in the last-16.
“USA! USA! USA!” echoed the official White House account. It has been a full weekend programme of nausea-inducing, stars-and-stripes-soaked patriotism across the nation but this tops the lot.
Suspended is the operative word here – Balogun’s punishment for his sending off against Bosnia and Herzegovina has been pushed back a year. Not overturned, nor should it be for stepping on the foot of Tarik Muharemovic. It looked worse in slow motion and Balogun felt hard-done-by – but that is not why this has happened.
In other words, it is Fifa making it up as they go along. Simply, they are doing it to appease the co-hosts, to placate the President and ultimately, because they can. The Belgian FA say they are “astonished” – they probably shouldn’t be.
Before a ball had been kicked at this summer’s tournament, the script had already been bent out of shape to allow Cristiano Ronaldo one final run at a World Cup when he should have been banned for the first two matches.
Ronaldo was sent off in Portugal’s penultimate competitive game before the tournament against the Republic of Ireland, earning a three-match ban. Except, of course, two of those were kicked down the road, to a date by which time he will most likely have retired at international level.
The integrity of this World Cup has always hinged on the football distracting from everything else – the barred Somalian referee, the staggering treatment of the Iranian team, the climate of fear in which supporters from diaspora communities fear ICE raids when they come out to support their teams.
With its most egregious rule-breaking yet, Fifa has ripped up any last notion that the action can conceal the increasingly absurd dynamics that allow its co-hosts to act with impunity. The appalling refereeing in Paraguay’s defeat to France was one thing, but it was at least a case of human error as opposed to deliberate dishonesty.
Read more
- Daniel Storey: I’ve just witnessed an utter disgrace at this World Cup
- Daniel Storey: England fans have been treated appallingly by Fifa
It is 64 years since a red card was overturned at the World Cup – and it is the only other time it has happened from a sample size of 189. Garrincha was cleared to play for Brazil despite kicking a Chilean in the semi-final – it prompted a diplomatic incident and allegations of bribery before he miraculously appeared a few days later to play a part in Brazil’s victory.
That might sound like a horror tale of old. Now it is the new normal. There are reports that Trump personally put a call into Fifa – because, why wouldn’t he? Gianni Infantino’s patent disregard for the basic rules of play and normal order have got us here and will take us further still into unrecognisable new depths.
Balogun is his country’s top scorer at this World Cup. He was born in Brooklyn, to parents on a temporary visa. Were it not for a Supreme Court intervention, Trump would have banned birthright citizenship, meaning the striker would never have been eligible to play for the USA at all. One final irony which will no doubt be lost on the President – and on a governing body who will do anything in their power to pacify him.
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