Not content with dragging politics into a sewer, Donald Trump has now pulled the World Cup down there too, smirking as football is left to choke on the stench.His reported call to FIFA boss Gianni Infantino over USA striker Folarin Balogun's sending off suspension is a scandal. Shameful, poisonous and indefensible. It has politicised the World Cup, compromised the integrity of the competition and told every other nation on earth that FIFA's rules can be shown the red card if the right powerful man starts barking down the phone.Balogun was sent off against Bosnia and Herzegovina. A red card brings an automatic ban. That is how the game works. The referee decides, the disciplinary code kicks in, the player sits out. Except, it seems, when Trump decides he doesn't like it.‌Then FIFA suddenly finds a way. The suspension is paused, America's main goal threat is available for the last-16 tie against Belgium, and Infantino expects the rest of the world to nod along and pretend this all happened by chance. What an insult.Trump cannot see a camera without turning towards it, nor an institution without testing whether it will bend for him. The man who has spent his political life bullying courts, mocking elections and treating public office as personal property has now found another target: football.The bitter joke is that Trump has quite possibly never heard of Balogun beyond what an aide whispered in his ear. This was not about the player or about justice. It was about power - about proving, once again, that he can interfere wherever he likes and watch weak white men scurry around pretending everything was proper. Which brings us to Infantino.‌The FIFA president should be the last line of defence against political interference in the game. Instead, he looks like a man forever desperate to bask in Trump's shadow. The smiles, the sycophancy, the grovelling, the absurd decision to hand Trump a FIFA Peace Prize just weeks before he began bombing Iran. It has looked less like diplomacy and more like fan-boy flattery from a man who has forgotten the difference between leadership and fawning. But now it looks dangerous.Infantino is not fit to run world football if he cannot tell a president to stay out of disciplinary matters. He is not fit to run the game if FIFA's independence can be shattered by one phone call. And he is not fit to hold office if his first instinct is to keep Trump sweet rather than protect the credibility of a tournament watched by billions.Football depends on trust. Fans can tolerate bad refereeing, rotten luck and VAR taking an age to rule on a big toe. What they cannot stomach is the suspicion that the rules are being bent for a host nation because its president made a call. That suspicion will now hang over the United States for the rest of this tournament. If Balogun scores against Belgium, the goal will be questioned. If he wins a penalty or sets up a winner, millions will ask whether the result was wrong before kick-off.‌That stain belongs to Trump and Infantino. It is also a rank injustice to Belgium, which faces not just the United States but FIFA politics, too. It is also an injustice to every player who has ever served a red-card ban without anyone picking up the phone. And it is an injustice to every smaller nation that knows full well that no one in power would ever intervene on its behalf.FIFA's statement hiding behind Article 27 of its disciplinary code only makes the whole thing smell worse. Legal language cannot disguise the stench. A suspension that should have ruled Balogun out has been put on hold for a year. The practical result is simple: America gets its striker back when it matters most. How convenient. How pathetic. How FIFA.Infantino needs to go. Not after another committee or another review. He should go because this is the final proof that he has grown too close to power and too far removed from the sport he is paid to protect. The World Cup should be decided by footballers. Not presidents. Not phone calls. Not the desperate courtship of a FIFA boss who seems more interested in pleasing Trump than protecting the game.‌Trump has disgraced himself. Infantino has disgraced FIFA. And football has been left to carry the shame.