THERE was a wave of relief throughout the football world on Tuesday when Belgium defeated the USA 4-1 in their last-16 knock-out game in the World Cup. US president Donald Trump’s outrageous attempt to subvert the outcome of the match had, thankfully, backfired.
Trump had requested that his friend, Gianni Infantino – president of international football’s governing body Fifa – breach World Cup rules and order a “review” of the red card for American striker Folarin Balogun. Football supporters across the globe reacted with disbelief and fury when Fifa granted Balogun a 12-month stay-of-execution on his red card, enabling him to play in the crucial tie against the Belgians.
To make matters worse, Infantino insulted the intelligence of the entire world by insisting that the suspension of Balogun’s red card was entirely unrelated to Trump’s request and was a decision that had – purely coincidentally – been taken by an independent Fifa committee.
Like, I feel certain, the overwhelming majority of football fans, I was pleased and relieved when the USA lost the game. Had they advanced, it would have been such an egregious injustice – in a World Cup already mired in scandal – that it would have all but destroyed the tournament’s teetering credibility.
As it is, American fans of the sport they insist on calling “soccer” should reflect on the impact of the conduct of their president on their national team. Trump’s (typically shameless, self-aggrandising and very public) intervention put the USA team, and the unfortunate Balogun in particular, at the centre of massive, global controversy.
There can be little doubt that the situation destabilised the American players and fired up the Belgians. Consequently, the USA played their worst game of the tournament, while Thibaut Courtois, Romelu Lukaku and co had their best.
For his part – and someone will probably have to explain the “soccer” terminology to him – Trump scored a catastrophic own goal, as his actions contributed hugely to the downfall of his country’s team.
The primary blame for this mess lies, of course, with Infantino and Trump themselves. However, there is a pyramid of responsibility.
Beyond the presidents of Fifa and the US, much blame lies with the supposed Fifa “committee” which agreed to suspend the Balogun red card. Then there is the role of the United States Soccer Federation (USSF).
If it had any sense of decency and fair play, the USSF would simply have said that it did not request that Balogun be declared eligible to play and that they would not field him.
Finally, there is the role of the USA team’s manager Mauricio Pochettino.
The Argentine would only have enhanced his previously high standing in world football if he had demanded of his employer – the USSF – that it support him in refusing to select Balogun; otherwise he would resign immediately. Instead, Pochettino hid behind the pathetic excuse that he had to follow the position taken by Fifa.
Like anyone else who loves the game of football, the USA manager could, surely, see that the Fifa position was an unsustainable disgrace. As the respected manager Jürgen Klopp said: “If Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino really sorted this out between themselves, it is madness; it calls everything into question.”
The USA’s exit from the World Cup is not, and cannot be, the end of this sorry story. The Balogun case exposes a malignant and growing tumour in world football. We have long known that Fifa is corrupt.
The organisation is awash with the money that comes with the big business interests involved in the most popular sport on the planet. Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter left his position as Fifa president reeking of the stench of financial corruption.
Infantino – who took up the Fifa presidency in 2016 – was, supposedly, elected to cleanse football of the dirt of the Blatter era. What a sick joke that has turned out to be.
The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar – complete with the appalling deaths of, at the very least, 6500 migrant workers in the construction of the stadiums – put paid to any idea that Infantino was ushering in a new period of transparency and decency at Fifa.
His nauseating sycophancy towards Trump – including the bleak farce of the “Fifa Peace Prize”, which Infantino invented for, then presented to, Trump in December of last year – was a harbinger of events to come.
If there was any democratic accountability left within Fifa, Infantino would have been forced to resign long before now.
However, there is no sign whatsoever of football’s administrators – including our own Scottish Football Association (SFA) – doing the right thing any time soon.
Take the case of the disgusting Fifa Peace Prize, for example. Of all of the world’s football associations, only the Norwegians are currently supporting an ethics complaint against Infantino for his patent breach of Fifa rules on political bias.
People of conscience here in Scotland would, no doubt, like to see the SFA join the Norwegian federation’s principled stance. They would be well-advised not to hold their breath, however.
Principle and courage are not the strongest suits of those who sit in offices at Hampden Park administering the Scottish game.
In December of last year – more than two years into Israel’s genocide in Gaza – the SFA decided it was a good time to sell the naming rights to our national stadium for the very first time, and to none other than one of the State of Israel’s chief bankers, Barclays.
Barclays provides more than £8 billion worth of investment and loans to companies arming Israel. The bank also has an agreement with Israel to act as a “primary dealer” for its government bonds.
Remember these facts the next time you’re sitting in a Scottish football stadium listening to an SFA-sanctioned statement about “unacceptable behaviour”.
The Balogun case has brought the 2026 World Cup into disrepute. Even more importantly, it has shone a glaring light on the corruption of world football by big business and political interests.
