Jokes Apart | When Trump saw red without knowing what a red card was

In the end, it didn’t matter. Belgium won decisively against the USA in a knockout game. The scoreline read 4-1. The Belgians celebrated by performing the trademark Trump-YMCA dance after the match. Of course, Trump wouldn’t mind — even mockery is publicity.

But what if America had won? What if the player in question, Folarin Balogun, had scored a brace? The USA team’s win would have been tainted and tarnished, and for no fault of theirs. All because Donald Trump wants to insert himself into every important cultural moment of his country, take the credit.

The good thing about Trump is that he loves boasting. He could have pulled strings behind the scenes and said he had nothing to do with FIFA’s decision to overturn Balogun’s ban. The entire affair would have remained murky. But Trump loves trumpeting his triumphs. As it happened, he laid bare his contradictory logic, claiming that he “knows sports really well”, while saying he didn’t know “what the hell a red card was.” He also went on to make unsubstantiated allegations against the referee who issued the red card, calling him “very suspect”, and saying he had a “history” of making bad decisions, a clear case of defamation.

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His logic about the tackle that led to the red card was classically Trumpian: “That was two guys running at full speed that happened to crash into each other. You can’t take your foot and properly place it on someone else’s foot when you’re going... It’s one thing to penalise somebody for the game, but how do you penalise them for a game that hasn’t been played yet?” Well, that’s how the game works.”

I’m glad that Trump is not so interested in cricket. In the last T20 World Cup that India won, USA had India on the mat before Suryakumar Yadav rescued us. In my mind, I can imagine Trump addressing a press conference, protesting an LBW decision that went against an American batsman: “I picked up the phone and called my good friend, Jay, and I said how can a player be declared out when the bails haven’t been dislodged? That’s so unfair.”

It’s said about football that it’s a beautiful game. It’s said about cricket that it’s a game of glorious uncertainties. Fact is all sport is beautiful, and full of glorious uncertainty. What makes sport beautiful are the rules of the game, which are sacred. Sport exists in a fantasy bubble; within the bubble there is the purity of an art form. In itself, all sport is intrinsically absurd; it has nothing to do with life as we know it. It’s the purity of the controlled environment that makes it larger than life. Mistakes, errors of judgment and biases are there for all to see. But, once you literally start moving the goalpost, the game loses meaning.

Let’s, for a moment, ask ourselves if something like this has ever happened in football. It has. It happened in the 1962 World Cup semi-final between Brazil and Chile, when Garrincha was issued a red card. After intense diplomatic lobbying from Brazil, the suspension was overturned; Garrincha played the finals, which Brazil went on to win.

Coming to the present World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo received the first red card of his career during a qualifier against the Republic of Ireland. While “violent conduct” carries a three-match suspension, FIFA’s disciplinary committee reduced the suspension to one match due to his clean disciplinary record over 225 prior international appearances. Ronaldo served the mandatory one-game ban during the final qualifier against Armenia, which cleared him to play in the World Cup. Basically, you cannot have a global superstar not playing the first two matches of football’s biggest tournament. It doesn’t make commercial sense.

When the game begins, we tend to forget about the backroom machinations, which FIFA has been guilty of for the longest time. Sepp Blatter, the previous president had to step down over allegations of corruption, while forty officials and corporate entities were indicted, many being sent to jail. Podcaster and sports journalist Pablo Torre recently called FIFA an “apex predator of corruption”.

The current president, Gianni Infantino, has made one too many trips to the White House, raising eyebrows, and famously presented Trump with a newly minted peace prize. He flies around from venue to venue in a private jet provided by Qatar Airways. He knows he has a great product in the World Cup, and a captive audience. This year he expanded the number of teams from 32 to 48.

He added a hydration break, which is essentially a commercial break — to make it more profitable for FIFA and broadcasters. It makes no sense, especially when matches are played in air-conditioned stadiums. It reminded me of India’s surrogate advertising. We all know that Black and White is a whisky and not ginger ale.

Infantino has also floated the idea of increasing the frequency of the tournament. He’s close to heads of state, from Qatar to Saudi Arabia. He will be re-elected as president since he has the votes to win, with African, Asian and South American federations all backing him again.

The problem with Trump and Infantino is that while they are elected representatives — of a country and organisation respectively — they have a tendency to behave like kings in medieval times, issuing farmaans and decrees, and bending rules, at their whim and fancy.

This has been an exciting World Cup quality-wise. Just think of Egypt-Argentina, Cabo Verde-Argentina or England-Mexico. But it has also proved that sport and politics are intertwined. The U.S. government's entry rules forced the Iranian team to commute from Tijuana, Mexico, arrive only 24 hours before matches, and leave immediately afterwards, hindering player recovery and training. Several members of their support staff were denied visas.

Somali referee, Omar Artan, was sent back by border control officials in Miami despite having a valid visa and documents. Artan, the 2025 Confederation of African Football (CAF) Men's Referee of the Year, would have been the first Somali referee to officiate at the World Cup finals. Following hours of questioning by border authorities, he was deemed inadmissible to the U.S. due to security vetting concerns. The good part: FIFA agreed to pay him in full.

Politics and sport are linked in India too. Our powerful cricket board ensures that Indian players get away with a fair bit. To take one instance, think Virat Kohli shoulder-shoving Australian debutant Sam Konstas during the Boxing Day test in 2024. He was fined 20 per cent of his match fee and awarded one demerit point. A lesser player from a lesser board would have faced at least a one-match suspension. We all know what happened with Bangladesh and India, with reference to the IPL and the previous T20 WC.

To conclude, there was a “beautiful” and “great” irony in the whole red card fiasco. Also, a typically Trumpian contradiction. Balogun, whose suspension was overturned, is a product of birthright citizenship. He was born in New York, but grew up in London. Birthright citizenship is exactly what Trump wants to abolish.

I’m sure that if Trump hadn’t got his way, he would have slapped more tariffs on Belgium. There is a video of Trump in the White House, where Infantino is showing him the referee’s wallet that contains the two cards. He really seems to dig the idea. Perhaps, he will now stop using a Sharpie to sign executive orders, and switch to showing red and yellow cards in order to make nations toe his line.

(The writer is the author of ‘The Butterfly Generation: A Personal Journey into the Passions and Follies of India’s Technicolor Youth’, and the editor of ‘House Spirit: Drinking in India’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)