The Art of the Steal: Trump’s ‘America First’ arrives on football pitch

I am passionate about football. It’s difficult to think logically when one is overtaken by annoyance, however. Readers, this might not offer a pleasurable reading experience. Accept my apologies upfront.

Football is ‘the’ beautiful game for a reason. The telepathic understanding between Xavi, Iniesta and Messi at the heart of Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona, a Messi dribble, a Haaland leap, all six-foot-five-inch of a Viking tank defying gravity to head the ball into the far corner of the net, a Mbappe overlap, a Lamine Yamal nutmeg, a breathtaking stop by Cabo Verde goalie Vozinha… The sheer aestheticism of the game brings tears to the eyes.

The poetry of football, however, cannot flower without the steel structure holding it aloft. The game that makes or breaks careers, clubs and countries, functions on the bedrock of iron-clad rules and regulations. If the steel structure is allowed to rot, if the rules are governed by the law of the fish, if there is a two-tier structure in place that allows for one set of rules (or the lack of it) for the world’s most powerful nation and another set of rules for the rest, football descends from Pele’s joga bonito to ‘match-fixing’ where lobbying overturns suspensions, phone calls upturns decisions and outcomes are decided off the field.

More from Opinion

The game loses its integrity. The governing body loses credibility. Worse still, the team that received the undue favour is branded a ‘cheat’ for ostensibly no fault of the players.

That’s precisely where we are at with FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s craven surrender to global bully-in-chief Donald Trump. The decision to rescind the automatic one-match suspension of US striker Folarin Balogun after he was sent off during the US’s win against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the move to allow him to appear for the knockout tie against Belgium will forever find its place among the Hall of Infamy. This might be the worst scandal ever to have sullied this sport.

Football deserves better. The players who shed blood, sweat and tears on the pitch fighting for their clubs and nations deserve better. The fans who throng to the stadium spending hard-earned money, sway between hope and despair, alternate between tears of happiness and anguish deserve better. Everyone may rightfully feel cheated because a corrupt American president, a certified schmuck who believes that he is above all rules, regulations, laws of nature and physics, found in FIFA chief Infantino a grovelling, servile doormat and intervened to set a dangerous precedent, one that may have far-reaching consequences for the game.

The rescinding of the red-card suspension for Balogun is not just a refereeing controversy. It is a catastrophic breach of sporting integrity. It is the moment when this World Cup ceased to be a genuine athletic competition and morphed into an extension of American geopolitical muscle. This is an instance of Trump’s ‘America First’ policy invading the football pitch.

If a head of state can simply pick up the phone, lean on a pliant governing body, and alter the competitive reality of a knockout stage, then the games are no longer decided on the field. That is the very definition of “match-fixing”.

Balogun was sent off in the 64th minute against Bosnia and Herzegovina for a foul on Tarik Muharemovic. The decision may have been harsh. But so was the yellow card handed out to French forward Michael Olise ‌for a confrontation with Paraguay midfielder Matias Galarza during a round of 16 match on Saturday.

Even more so was the late penalty awarded to Belgium that eliminated Senegal, a VAR decision that many interpreted as the African nation getting mugged in broad daylight.

FIFA’s rules are clear. As Article 66.4 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code states: “A sending-off automatically incurs suspension from the subsequent match.” Article 10.5 of the 2026 World Cup Competition Regulations restates the principle in the tournament’s own document: “Any player sent off will automatically be suspended from their team’s subsequent match.” Article 9.6 adds a bit of finality: “No protests may be made about the referee's decisions regarding facts connected with play.”

Belgium, the team facing the USA in the knockout tie, is understandably furious. The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) said it is “astonished by FIFA’s decision to declare suspended United States player Balogun eligible to play in the USA-Belgium match on Monday” and in a statement, pointed out the “automatic nature of such a suspension was also explicitly reaffirmed in FIFA World Cup 2026 Circular No. 16, which was distributed to all participating member associations on 12 May 2026”, adding, “the same rule is reiterated at every FIFA World Cup 2026 Match Coordination Meeting prior to each match and is included in all FIFA World Cup 2026 workshop presentations.”

FIFA would have none of the protestations. It has crossed all boundaries of shamelessness. Infantino claimed, incredibly, that FIFA’s “judicial bodies are independent. They operate autonomously, apply the FIFA Disciplinary Code, and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them,” while admitting that he did receive a phone call from President Trump.

Contrary to what Infantino may claim, Trump did not call FIFA to “better understand” the nuances of a tackle. By his own admission, he doesn’t even know what a ‘red card’ is. He called up the FIFA chief to exert the weight of the American presidency on a corrupted organization. Trump identifies well the stench of corruption, having dwelled in it for the entire length of his life. He threw all footballing rules to the wind, demanded a bailout for a star player of his country, and when the unprecedented reversal was announced, he had the audacity to take a victory lap on Truth Social, crowing, “Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!”

Trump’s interference is the proverbial middle finger to every other nation competing in this tournament, signaling that they are playing a rigged game where the host nation holds the ultimate trump card.

Trump’s presidency has, in 18 months, shown that the United States goes by its own rules, bends them when suitable and cites them when convenient, be it in geopolitics or sport. Trump has made a working method of treating rules -- whether sovereign, institutional, or sporting -- as suggestions binding on other parties but negotiable for himself.

There is no substantive difference between a president who demands that FIFA suspend Article 66.4 for his striker and a president who demands that the WTO suspend its tariff schedules for his manufacturers. Trump has shown to the rest of the world the brittleness of the western world order that claims to run on normative structures.

What I found amusing amid the midst of this tragedy is his ‘character certificate’ for Infantino, his partner in crime. As a drunkard vouching for a tavern-keeper, Trump claimed proudly before the reporters Monday, “Yes, I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to a man who is highly respected, and by the way, whose level of respect has gone up tenfold.”

Trump’s lack of self-awareness is fascinating. He is peerless in amorality. He perhaps has no idea that he is crossing several red lines and boundaries and thinks that putting pressure on FIFA to reverse a red card decision is something he can be genuinely proud of! But what can one say of Infantino, the man who ostensibly vowed to clear up FIFA’s reputation, except to say that he has dragged it further through mud?

Infantino, a man known for sucking up to autocratic rulers, has been Trump’s ‘Grade A’ sycophant. He calls the US president “my great friend”, has visited the Oval Office more often than any other world leader since Trump returned to White House and has even opened a FIFA office inside Trump Tower.

He allowed Trump to keep replica World Cup and Club World Cup trophies and awarded the US president a self-conceived ‘FIFA Peace Prize.’ Earlier this year, he reportedly arrived hours late to FIFA’s own panel in Asunción because he was travelling with Trump in West Asia, prompting European federations to accuse him of prioritising “private political interests” over the sport.

Infantino has spent two years converting FIFA’s presidency into an appendage of Trump’s royal court. When he claims that his committee reached its Balogun verdict on the ‘merits’ of Article 27, having never previously found those merits in six decades of red cards, the only logical conclusion left to draw is that he is learning the art of brazenness from his ‘great friend’.

Article 27 of the Disciplinary Code has never, in FIFA’s history, been used to override the automatic match ban attached to a straight red inside a World Cup.

As the BBC points out, “there have been 189 red cards in the history of the World Cup, and only two players have not served a suspension. The only other instance came in 1962, when Brazil’s Garrincha was sent off against Chile in the semi-final, but played in the victory over Czechoslovakia in the final. Back then, however, there was no automatic ban. It was decided by committee with evidence given by the officials.”

What Trump has done constitutes no less than blatant political interference and it forms a fit case for immediate suspension of the US national soccer team. They should face sporting sanctions, barred from competing in the next World Cup and banned for bidding for the tournament again.

Finally, Infantino should resign. He is too brazen and power hungry to do so, so perhaps the UEFA, the nerve centre and real money market for the game, should get working and organize a separate governing body for world sport along with CONMEBOL, CAF, AFC and the likes, and push for the purging of Infantino from FIFA, as well as deeper reforms.

The stakes are too high. The game is too precious to fall prey to a crooked POTUS and his toadying lackey.

(Views expressed are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.)