FIFA’s history of criminality makes it a perfect receptacle for phone calls from a ‘boss man’

FIFA’s latest gift to Donald Trump, its twisting, weaving run around its own rules to allow US striker Folarin Balogun to play against Belgium on Tuesday, is nothing if not consistent.

Gianni Infantino had already turned the football organisation into a servant of the White House, and this action is perfectly in line with Infantino’s invention of a FIFA Peace Prize for the US President last December.

The Trump presidency, rife with allegations relating to racketeers, insider-traders and brown paper bag merchants, is a natural ally for FIFA.

Trump decided, with his years of soccer expertise, that Balogun’s red card for stomping on the leg of a Bosnia and Herzegovina player in the previous round, automatically ruling him out of the Belgium tie, was invalid and had to be overturned.

So he made a call to Infantino to ask whether it could be reviewed.

FIFA’s history of criminality makes it a perfect receptacle for phone calls from a “boss man”

Most laughable in the reaction to the scandal has been a social media post from former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who, in dismay at his successor’s venality, asked FIFA, ‘Quo Vadis?’ (Latin for ‘Where are you going?’). The world might ask Blatter, ‘Quo venisti?” (‘Where have you come from?’) FIFA’s rap sheet of corrupt and felonious behaviour, under Blatter and his mentor Joao Havelange, is about as long as Trump’s.

The many accusations of FIFA as a rotten body are correct, but they have also been correct for at least half a century and have never made any difference.

What is not consistent – and therefore eye-catching amid the ordure and open transactionalism – is that in other circumstances, Trump’s America would be kicking in Balogun’s door and bundling him off to detention and deportation.

Balogun is less American than tens of thousands of victims of Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In 2001, when his Nigerian-born, British-domiciled mother was seven months pregnant, she visited New York to have her child. The Baloguns lived in the US for four months either side of the birth, before returning to their home in England.

Folarin became a star striker at a young age, coming through Arsenal’s academy and representing England from under-17 to under-21 levels. His professional club career has been exclusively in England and France. Only in 2023, after failing to make the England team, did he respond to American invitations to make himself eligible. He had also reportedly been interested in representing Nigeria.

Balogun is an American only by birth, a mode of citizenship qualification that Trump’s White House has tried its hardest to rescind.

In 2024, Trump also issued an executive order specifically against “birth tourism”, which Balogun’s parents had undertaken.

The US Supreme Court affirmed birthright citizenship, against the Trump administration’s arguments, just last month. You couldn’t make it up.

Given Balogun’s form and delivery as the US team’s key goalscorer in this World Cup, he is not just another player. Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who is also not just another player, was the previous beneficiary of Infantino’s personal fiat in overturning a “mandatory” ban so that he could play in the opening round of this World Cup.

What is somewhat new about this latest transaction is how brazen and self-advertising it is. Previous FIFA corruption scandals took place in the shadows and were uncovered through investigation. This one was bruited by Trump himself, who has openly boasted about his three phone calls to Infantino to complain about Balogun’s ban. It is Trump’s style to brag about his influence. It is Trump’s history to refuse to accept a referee’s decision. It is Infantino’s obligation to pretend FIFA made its Balogun ruling independently of Trump.

But the nakedness of the bias was on show when Belgium’s football authorities were only given hours to appeal, were not given the reasons for the decision, and were denied legal standing by FIFA, which ruled that Belgium was not a party to the dispute.

Belgium’s only avenue for response was on the field, and they delivered, crushing the US 4-1. Balogun was supported by the partisan US crowd in Seattle. A Belgian win would be seen as a form of justice and a consoling demonstration that cheats never prosper. But it is only an illusion of justice, contingent, hollow and temporary, while Infantino remains in his job.

Aside from American sympathisers with an instant expertise in the rules and processes of football, the condemnation has been universal.

Infantino’s position as head of FIFA is untenable, but that never stopped Blatter or Havelange. What stands out, with the overall success of the World Cup as a spectacle so far, is how a sport that is so precious to so many, arousing passions on the scale of life and death, remains controlled by men you wouldn’t trust to cash a $20 cheque for you.