Football is never without its controversies. International competitions like the World Cup are often decided by how much money a country can bring into FIFA’s coffers. How else could you explain a country like the USA, whose football history and support is less than many other footballing nations, having hosted two World Cups in the last 36 years, while England, the home of football, has hosted only one since 1966? The US professional league, the MLS (Major League Soccer), only played its first match in 1996. The United States bid was also projected to be the most commercially lucrative in FIFA’s history, making the financial incentive impossible to ignore.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino and USA President Donald Trump have had an enduring relationship since Trump’s first term in the White House. This relationship is so strong that Trump was able to make a call to Infantino to have a red card that was awarded to USA and Monaco player Folarin Balogun suspended for 12 months, making him available for their knockout game against Belgium. Trump himself stated that he contacted Infantino asking for the decision to be reviewed. Trump, being the ridiculously arrogant man he is, even spoke to the press about the incident:
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “So, I saw the play, and I’m a person that loves sports and was a good athlete. I understand sports really well. Really well.”
“That wasn’t a foul. That wasn’t even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. You can’t take your foot and properly place it on somebody else’s foot when you’re going full speed. These were two great athletes that got tangled up.”
“If he punched him in the face, if he did something wrong, I’d feel differently.”
Apparently, President Trump is now an authority on football as well. Considering he’s a world-renowned braggart, his belief of being a footballing expert is no surprise.
Corrupt FIFA
Infantino was elected on a platform of “cleaning up” FIFA as an organisation after the previous president, Sepp Blatter, was involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals in world sport.
Infantino may have spoken of a change in the culture of the organisation, but essentially the only change was a slicker approach. Secret meetings, the Panama Papers and an accused breach of FIFA’s code of ethics all within the first few years of his tenure.
Safe to say that Infantino and Trump make good bedfellows. Both of them are ardent capitalists willing to bend any rule in search of profit.
Infantino and Trump’s relationship is definitely a close one, with Infantino declaring Trump to be a “great friend” when he accompanied him to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
After President Trump was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Infantino created the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, which was awarded to Trump through a very opaque nomination process.
The Red Card
The U.S.A. national team played Bosnia and Herzegovina, winning 2–0, with Balogun scoring the first goal before half time. Near the end of the match, the referee was called to double-check an incident involving Folarin Balogun and Tarik Muharemovic. The USA forward Balogun was seen to stamp down on the back of Bosnia and Herzegovina centre-half Muharemovic’s ankle. This led to a straight red and a one-match ban. This is where the controversy comes into play.
The President of the United States of America called in a favour from his “great friend” Infantino to overturn the ban so the Monaco forward could play in the next game against Belgium.
Infantino invoked Article 27 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code, which states:
- The judicial body may decide to fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure.
- By suspending the implementation of the sanction, the judicial body subjects the person sanctioned to a probationary period of one to four years.
- If the person benefiting from a suspended sanction commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension shall be revoked by the judicial body and the sanction enforced without prejudice to any additional sanction imposed for the new infringement.
- Disciplinary measures relating to match manipulation cannot be suspended.
The wording sets out the power but not the criteria for exercising it. It grants FIFA’s judicial bodies an exceptionally broad discretion without defining when such discretion should be used. Whether intentional or not, such vague drafting lends itself to political influence and inconsistent application. As it has been.
FIFA insists its judicial bodies operate independently. If that is true, Trump’s intervention achieved nothing. If it is false, then one of the world’s biggest sporting competitions has been influenced by the head of the host state. Neither possibility reflects well on FIFA.
This isn’t even the first use of this “get out of jail free” card, as Portugal’s superstar Cristiano Ronaldo was allowed the same privilege so he could play in the first game of the World Cup.
Hilariously, this didn’t make a bit of difference as Belgium resoundingly beat a woeful USA team, knocking them out of the competition they were hosting. I won’t lie, I did celebrate a bit.
Whether Balogun would made any difference or not is beside the point. The issue is that the President of the United States publicly admitted contacting the President of FIFA regarding a disciplinary decision involving the host nation’s player. In any organisation claiming sporting integrity, that admission alone should have triggered serious questions.
FIFA is a corrupt organisation no matter who is in charge and the USA is a morally bankrupt, imperialist state. The two fit together like matching jigsaw pieces. The stars of the World Cup are Messi, Ronaldo and the host nation. To create the vast amount of profit FIFA desires, it would be in their interests to have all three in the competition for as long as possible. The use of rulings or disciplinary codes to make this happen is not something these capitalist ruling organisations have any fear of using.
This is just one incident in a World Cup that is riddled with injustice. The imperialist USA has never had a lower approval rating around the world. This World Cup is an attempt at sportswashing its image, but it has proven once again to be completely morally bankrupt.
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