Everything was absolutely predictable. Because FIFA had already allowed him everything. Bombing and assassinating the political leader of a qualified country, mistreating its national team by forcing them to arrive on its soil just hours before a match and having to leave as soon as it ended. Expelling a Somali referee. Imposing ridiculously low ticket prices. Threatening the other two host countries of the tournament. One with sending marines, the other with annexing part of its territory. This is also part of what the world has already allowed him to do.
I write these lines after an eleven-hour drive from Miami to Atlanta, where Argentina will play tomorrow Tuesday for its ticket to the quarterfinals against Switzerland. I am in the land of Coca-Cola. When thirty years ago the Olympic Games celebrated their centenary, Athens believed that, by natural right, it deserved to host the 1996 Olympics. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the Games to Atlanta. «Coca-Cola beat the Parthenon,» protested the sports world, which believed itself free from dirty money. Now it is football that feels something has definitively changed in its history. Welcome to the USA. Land of Liberty. Two hundred and fifty years of brand-new independence celebrated with a clean rocket barrage we saw Saturday night in the Miami sky. It looked like a bombing. One of many.
And I also write these lines before the United States plays today against Belgium for its place in the quarterfinals. The match is in Seattle, where an American colleague tells me the World Cup has its best venue in this country, because the stadium is right in the city’s downtown, amid cafes and bars, and where people, unlike other places, debate the political meaning of the spectacle, including sports. That’s why my Seattle-born colleague sends me the street sign showing FIFA President Gianni Infantino posing alongside the president of the world, Donald Trump. And the caption reads: «FIFA War Cup.»
These lines, just arrived in Atlanta, I write, of course, because we see how widespread indignation grows as Trump openly admitted that he intervened so that FIFA, invoking regulatory protection, lifted the automatic one-match suspension imposed on the United States’ star striker, Falorim Balogun, for his red card in the previous match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was for an infraction that was not intended to be violent, but ended up clumsy and reckless. Trump, ignorant of football (and not only football), told this afternoon how he intervened to stop everything. To suggest they had suspicious information about the Brazilian referee of the match, Raphael Claus. And we know how the United States intervenes when it turns its suspicions (and its interests) into global law. The corruption scandal driven by FIFAGate in 2015 is the best demonstration. The United States does not have Messi, but it has the FBI. A player’s expulsion implies an automatic one-match suspension. Like everyone else. Not anymore. Historic American exceptionalism has arrived in football. «He crossed a red line,» UEFA now fumes at FIFA. We all know that red line had been crossed long before.
Para mí los europeos son unos llorones de mierda. Trump les metió los huevos en la mesa y los dejó mamando. Balogun es un crack yankee y se merecía jugar. La FIFA bien que se doblegó, porque al fin alguien mueve los hilos como Dios manda. Viva Trump y viva USA carajo!
kheee para mi trump es un facho corrupto q se cree dueño del mundo y la fifa una vendida salva a balogun un croto choreandole a la uefa el futbol es del pueblo no de oligarcas yankis fuera imperialistas viva la soberania de las federaciones ✊🏽