Is it fair that players live in one reality and referees live in another? Is it fair that Donald Trump can impose his own reality on both?
In professional soccer, as in other sports, the evolution of technology has set a new standard for refereeing. That standard is perfection, and of course soccer is failing at it. How could it not? The introduction of Video Assistant Referee has made some decisions easier — hand balls, for instance — but it has also injected another level of uncertainty and ambiguity that is counterproductive to the rhythm of the game.
And, in the hands of the FIFA boss, Gianni Infantino, and Mr. Trump, it is counterproductive to the integrity of the game itself. The U.S. forward Folarin Balogun had faced automatic suspension for a red card that had been confirmed by V.A.R. After taking a phone call from the president, in which Mr. Trump asked for a review of Mr. Balogun’s suspension, Mr. Infantino found a way to restore the player’s eligibility for today’s knockout match against Belgium.
The Royal Belgium Football Association said it was “astonished by FIFA’s decision.”
There’s plenty of astonishment in this World Cup thanks to V.A.R. In the Portugal-Croatia match, Croatia’s late goal was ruled out for offside because a chip in the ball detected contact from a Croatian player that no human could have possibly discerned. Iran, already put at a disadvantage by the U.S. government by travel restrictions that hindered its match preparations, failed to advance to the knockout round after technology ruled out a goal it had scored against Egypt in the 93rd minute. It was a call that seemed almost deliberately cruel. Or just deliberate, if you ask the Iranians.
Then there’s the U.S.A. vs. Bosnia and Herzegovina match in which Mr. Balogun was red carded for a foul that the on-field referee clearly believed was no big deal and the V.A.R. crew decided was a capital crime (or at least worth a one-game suspension.) The decision, after further, further review, was that the American forward had somehow decided to hack his Bosnian opponent while falling backward and trying to find his own balance. Neither player appeared to think it any more than a random encounter. And fans worldwide have howled that an even worse transgression by the Argentine soccer deity Lionel Messi went unpunished by “Argenfifa.” Nevertheless, the V.A.R. prevailed and the American got his marching orders.
It was, and you can apply the discount of my being an American, an outrageous call. A wrong call. This happens all the time in any sport. There are times in the amateur league in which I coach when a ref wrongly decides to award the ball to our opponents for a throw-in and one of my players will shout: “But it went out off of them.” My response is typically: “And your point is?” Errors happen. Get on with it.
According to soccer’s rules, as interpreted by most people who actually understand them, the red card decision against Mr. Balogun might have been wrong but it should not have been reversible.
That’s until Mr. Trump called Mr. Infantino, and suggested that the rule of law in soccer, just like the rule of law in the U.S., doesn’t apply to him. According to the rarely used Article 27, which allows FIFA to suspend a disciplinary measure, the incorrect ruling that could not be corrected was in fact correctable. (Last November, when Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo received a red card for elbowing an Irish player, FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee rolled it back to a one-year probationary period, which allowed Mr. Ronaldo to play in the first round of the tournament. It was more superstar submission.)
Mr. Trump, of course, bragged about beating the charges and getting Mr. Balogun back for the critical knockout match against Belgium in Seattle. Mr. Balogun, it should be noted, is a Brooklyn-born player who was raised in England and plays in France for A.C. Monaco. He’s an American citizen by birthright, the kind of person targeted by the case the president lost last week in the Supreme Court.
We’re the fools to think that Mr. Infantino, a supposed reformer after the scandal-filled regime of his predecessor, Sepp Blatter, would make FIFA more aboveboard. His organization has handed soccer’s biggest tournament to both Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the petro potentates of Qatar, and he has turned the whole thing into an ever more gigantic money machine. He presented Mr. Trump with the first FIFA Peace Prize, after all; nearly three months later, of course, the peace prize winner would be starting a war with Iran by bombing schoolchildren. A friend noted that he has now won the FIFA Appease Prize, too.
This is a very good American team playing in what has been, to this point, a wildly successful, fairly played tournament. We can compete with just about anyone, although it’s also fair to say we are still not part of the elite, the way Belgium is.
A victory over Belgium would indeed be a measure of achievement, another mile marker passed on the journey of progress the sport has made in the United States. And perhaps one forever tarnished by our commander in cheat.
Bill Saporito is an editor for Times Opinion who has attended seven World Cups — five men’s and two women’s — as a reporter and spectator.
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