CAMBRIDGE, England: After four weeks of dazzling action on the pitch, it may be an off-field scandal that comes to define this summer’s World Cup.FIFA’s decision to allow America’s star striker, Folarin Balogun, to play in a last-16 match against Belgium, despite having been sent off in the previous game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, is in clear breach of the association’s own rules. The move has been greeted with outrage pretty much across the board.Extraordinarily, FIFA, international football’s governing body, has not only so far declined to give any detailed reasoning for its decision to suspend what would be a standard one-game ban following a red card. The reversal appears to result from direct pressure from the White House. Media reports suggest that US President Donald Trump made three calls to FIFA, starting from Jul 1, to ensure that the red card was overturned. The White House has said that the call was made to understand why Balogun was sent off and the reason for the suspension.
A SEISMIC INTERVENTIONWhether Balogun deserved to be sent off is debatable. It’s also of secondary importance when compared to the potential reverberations of this seismic intervention from FIFA.Naturally, the decision has been met with anger and bewilderment from the wider footballing community outside the US, not least by the Belgians. The Belgian football association’s statement promising to explore “all potential options” in the name of “[safeguarding] the legitimate rights of all participating teams and to protect the fundamental principles of fair play in our sport”, suggests that they have no intention of taking this lying down.UEFA, the governing body for football in Europe, has released a statement expressing “our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision”. The statement said that the one-match suspension rule following a red card is “not a discretionary option”. “It is a principle embedded in regulations, which cannot be made subject to exceptions, let alone in the middle of a tournament where several other players have been in the same situation and regularly served their suspension.”
