The Perfect Sports Scandal

Donald Trump has found his favorite international organization -- and gifts the rest of the world with the perfect sports controversy.

Photo by My Profit Tutor on Unsplash

The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World enjoys watching the World Cup every four years. Benign forms of nationalism and sports? Count me and my staff in!

This year’s World Cup has been particularly enjoyable. The games themselves have been way more entertaining than in tournaments past, with many of them being decided in stoppage time. Contrary to the fears of some, the expansion of the tournament from 32 to 48 entrants did not dilute the caliber of the competition. Indeed, it directly contributed to the greatest World Cup game I’ve ever seen, the Argentina-Cape Verde thriller.¹

Another bonus has been the positive effect on the North American teams hosting the tournament. Canada did better than they have ever done in a previous World Cup. Mexico did not allow a goal until England bested them last night. And the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) have played with a finesse and verve that I have not seen in an American team since… well… ever. As previously noted, the hospitality of ordinary Americans has also managed to supersede the Trump administration’s boorishness towards international visitors — a boorishness that likely contributed to the lack of any jobs surge from hosting the Cup.

Now, however, the combination of FIFA and Trump have managed to whip up the perfect sports scandal to get everyone to yell at each other.

A quick recap: during Team USA’s solid victory over Bosnia-Herzegovina last Wednesday, USMNT’s leading goal-scorer, Fol Balogun, was given a red card after a VAR review. That put the USMNT down a man for the rest of that match, and meant that Balogun would be suspended for Team USA’s match against Belgium this evening.

The red card was controversial, given that the ref didn’t even whistle for a foul in real time. Here’s the video:

My hot take is that Balogun deserved a yellow card for cleating the back of the Bosnian player’s calf, but the issuance of a red card seemed excessive. Beyond the obvious lack of intent and the Bosnian player’s actions immediately prior to the tackle, Balogun did not use excessive force in his attempt to get to the ball. Compare the play that resulted in Balogun getting a red card with the one in which Argentina’s Lionel Messi didn’t get anything despite doing something very similar against Algeria a few weeks ago: it starts to look ridiculous.

This was a legitimate controversy, with sports commentators and former referees debating the merits of the ref’s decision (it should be noted that Balogun himself demonstrated outstanding sportsmanship in real time and afterwards). But there was general agreement that the USMNT did well to gut out the rest of the Bosnia game (and even pad their lead) and that Balogun’s suspension would make the round of 16 game against Belgium a challenge.

And then FIFA called an audible. The Athletic broke the story that Balogun’s one-game ban had been suspended:

A statement from the governing body and World Cup organizer read: “In line with article 27 of the FIFA disciplinary code, the implementation of the match suspension is suspended for a probationary period of one year.

“If Folarin Balogun commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension shall be revoked and the sanction enforced without prejudice to any additional sanction imposed for the new infringement.”….

Article 27 of FIFA’s disciplinary code states that “the judicial body may decide to fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure.”

FIFA’s action was not entirely unprecedented — they used Article 27 to let Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo play at the start of group play. Still, making this announcement four days after the Bosnia game and just one day before the Belgium game seemed a bit wonky.

And then the New York Times’ Tyler Pager and Tariq Panja dropped the other shoe:

President Trump called Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, in the hours after the United States men’s soccer team played Wednesday and asked him to review the suspension of the team’s top goal scorer in the World Cup, Folarin Balogun, after he was given a red card, according to four people familiar with the conversation.

On Sunday, FIFA reversed the suspension, announcing that Mr. Balogun would be eligible to play Monday against Belgium.

The reversal is highly unusual and is the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended after being sent off in the World Cup. Mr. Infantino has spent years trying to curry favor with Mr. Trump. Last year, FIFA created and gave Mr. Trump the FIFA Peace Prize amid the president’s public, but failed, campaign to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Shortly after Mr. Balogun’s red card, senior Trump administration officials, including Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, and Andrew Giuliani, the executive director of the White House task force on the World Cup, engaged lawyers to help the U.S. Soccer Federation try to appeal, despite FIFA’s rules against such appeals, according to two of the people familiar with the call….

On Sunday, Mr. Infantino and Mr. Trump spoke again right after Mr. Balogun was reinstated, and the president told Mr. Infantino that it was the right decision, the people said. Mr. Trump also called Mauricio Pochettino, the U.S. coach, and wished him luck in the game against Belgium on Monday. Mr. Pochettino told reporters at a news conference on Sunday that his team was “not the bad guys.”….

Privately, some senior soccer officials expressed their incredulity at the handling of the case and openly discussed whether a precedent had now been set so other teams could demand their players be reinstated should they receive similar suspensions.

Needless to say, the Bosnians are pissed, the Belgians are pissed, the rest of Europe is pissed. Pretty much everyone outside of the U.S. now views the USMNT as the bad guys.

That is because, no matter whether Balogun deserved the red card, the Times reporting reveals that FIFA took this extraordinary action because Trump leaned on Infantino. The Wall Street Journal’s reporting matches the Times. The Guardian goes even further, claiming, “Trump made three calls to Fifa, starting from Wednesday, to ensure that the change was made.” FIFA can deny that Trump pressured them all it wants — the causal inference is too easy to make.

ESPN’s Mark Ogden explain why this is a horrible look for FIFA:

Who wants to win if victory becomes tainted by murky interventions that take place without any explanation or transparency?

Four days ago, FIFA made it clear that there was no appeals process for Balogun and that he would serve a one-match suspension -- case closed. The optics undermine the integrity of the competition: If you are a big player or play for a major nation -- and as co-host, the U.S. is certainly the latter -- the usual rules can be bent into whatever shape is required to achieve a desired outcome.

This, of course, is why Trump loves FIFA: he hates any whiff of impartiality and process and loves being able to pressure other actors into the outcome he wants. And let’s be clear: FIFA is about as corrupt an organization as one can find in international relations.²

In a weird way, this outcome is the perfect sports scandal, because everyone will get to be outraged. Americans can feel happy that a bad call was reversed and indignant that the rest of the world is up in arms about a wrong that was righted. And the rest of the world gets to be outraged because FIFA bent their rules in response to direct political pressure, and so the way the wrong was righted was very, very wrong.

Buckle up for tonight’s game — because no matter who loses, the winner will be outrage.

1. Seriously, if you haven’t watched the highlights of that game, do so now.

2. Heck, I used it as the exemplar of dysfunctional international organizations in my book The System Worked.