Trump Targets Football Too
The system may lean towards forgiving star players who are a draw at the gates, but not so blatantly as to pardon a player in the middle of a competition.
The credibility of the “beautiful game” of football and the integrity of Fifa as a neutral arbiter lay shattered when the US star striker Folarin Balogun took the field against Belgium in the World Cup. Political interference of the unalloyed kind from the US President Donald Trump led to an infantile decision by the sport’s governing body headed by Gianni Infantino, a self-confessed Trump fan, to allow an unprecedented mid-tournament reprieve for the red-carded Balogun.
The player’s appearance made no material difference to the result as Belgium pumped in three more goals to win 4-1 after the US had levelled the score at 1-1, much to the mirth of meme creators who had a field day taking down the image of Mr Trump as the interfering politico who had brought shame to a sport that is supposed to be above such petty politics. The US President may as well have asked for the US team to be declared winners of the World Cup and sent all the other teams home.
There are, however, precedents in decisions to reprieve booked players as they did for Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal who was facing a three-match suspension that would have included at least two World Cup games for fouling an Irish player in a qualifying match. The system may lean towards forgiving star players who are a draw at the gates, but not so blatantly as to pardon a player in the middle of a competition.
Granted that the foul called against Balogun may not have been serious enough to merit a red card after VAR verification, but there is the principle that the decision made on the field by officiating referees be respected. A red card offence cannot be erased just to pander to the winner of the Fifa Peace Prize who then went on to bomb Iran a few days after Mr Infantino had manufactured football’s “Nobel” just to please his patron.
Mr Trump’s presidential pardons may have excused serial offenders facing financial and a whole load of other allegations. So, he was never going to be chary of crossing into football territory with his personal wishes, but it was the committee’s fault that it saw fit to accept the plea at the cost of fair play, which is what sport is supposed to be all about. Fifa simply failed the game in acceding to the plea of a powerful man.