Show Infantino the door for reversal on red card

It took longer than most people thought it would, but U.S. President Donald Trump finally brought his brand of chaos to the men’s World Cup soccer tournament — and immediately soiled the bedsheets.

Trump was infuriated by a questionable red card shown to top U.S. forward Folarin Balogun during the U.S.A.’s July 1 match with Bosnia and Herzegovina — a disciplinary action which meant Balogun was ejected from the game and suspended for his country’s next match versus Belgium that took place on Monday.

Spurred on by officials including Andrew Giuliani (yes, the son of), director of the White House task force on the World Cup, Trump called up his bosom buddy, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, that very evening to ask that something be done about the suspension. He called Infantino again on July 4.

Lo and behold, FIFA announced on July 5 that its disciplinary panel had suspended the application of Balogun’s one-match ban for a year, making him eligible to play in the Belgium game (which the U.S. lost 4-1, by the way). Soon after, multiple news reports revealed Trump’s calls to Infantino and reaction was swift.

In the eyes of the globe, the head of state of a host nation had used his power to influence the biggest sporting competition in the world.

Both men had to speak to the scandal on Monday.

Trump, true to form, simply blustered his way through questions. At one point he said he thought the decision was made by a committee, at another he seemed proud of his interference: “I was the one who got them to do it.”

Infantino, meanwhile, went into face-saving, damage-control mode. The Swiss lawyer who heads the Fédération Internationale de Football pointed to the disciplinary panel and said due process was served; that Trump’s phone calls hadn’t influenced the decision.

To billions of fans of “the beautiful game” and what, to this point, has been a fabulous soccer tournament, Gianni’s words rang hollow.

The decision to reverse Balogun’s ban has also prompted retribution against the FIFA president. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Associated Press reported that human rights group FairSquare has filed a complaint to the international Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding Infantino’s “repeated breach of political neutrality rules.” It follows a similar complaint the rights group filed against the FIFA president last December.

The IOC has jurisdiction over Infantino after having joined the organization’s 100-plus invited members in 2020. Thus far, the IOC has provided no update on either complaint.

But Infantino’s tenure as FIFA president has been controversial from the start. Since he was elected in 2016 — in the wake of a corruption scandal which took down his predecessor, Josep (Sepp) Blatter, European football head Michel Platini and officials with soccer federations around the globe — the behaviour of Infantino and the governing body has been demonstrably and shamelessly ruthless.

Infantino and FIFA have used the men’s and women’s World Cup tournaments — specifically, the interest, prestige and feel-good value they bring — as a bludgeon to get their way on ticket prices, commercial rights and more. When faced with political difficulty, they resort to craven flattery to continue to extract maximum financial gain and avoid unseemly controversy with host countries.

In 2018 in Russia, Infantino overlooked Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and its demonstrably poor human-rights record. He even declared that tournament “the best World Cup ever.”

Before the 2022 event in Qatar, Infantino and FIFA sat silent as investigations revealed that hundreds, if not thousands, of temporary foreign workers died while working in deplorable conditions to build stadiums in the tiny Gulf country.

In the run-up to this year’s competition, Infantino has been currying favour with the volatile Trump since the U.S. president was elected. FIFA rents office space in Trump Tower in New York City (rent paid directly to the Trump Organization). Infantino has allowed Trump to display the World Cup and Club World Cup trophies in the Oval Office. Most galling, he even created a special FIFA Peace Prize and presented it to Trump at the World Cup draw in December, just weeks after the U.S. president complained bitterly about not winning last year’s Nobel Prize for peace.

In 2018 and 2022, Vladimir Putin and the Qatari emir observed proceedings quietly. Donald Trump was never going to be capable of doing that.

It is FIFA and Gianni Infantino who must now wear the stain of Trump. And it is Infantino who should be shown the door.

» Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun