Has there ever been a football World Cup so large, yet somehow wieldy; full of beauty, but also ugliness; inhumane and tainted, yet truthful? Its venues, though ridiculously renamed, look spectacular on TV, heaving with spectators and jumbotrons. So what if the PA system plays Titanium on loop everywhere. Normally, the possibilities and drama of every World Cup match wipe clean the ooze that comes through before opening night. But no matter how watchable and cleansing the football in this World Cup, the ooze never stop seeping through.
The reason 2026 is a truthful World Cup is because its US leg has given every football, and indeed sports fan, the clearest images of the greed, cynicism and hypocrisy that still underpins “the biggest show on earth” and drive those at its top. Despite being aware of the general two-facedness of global sports administration and as an Indian, of cricket’s own pusillanimous machinations, this football World Cup has been an eyeopener, especially about the sheer scale of brazen wrongdoing that is allowed to keep strutting its stuff and go unpunished.
This is not grumbling about the off-side rule with Shoja Khalilzadeh’s pinky-toe crossing the video replay line against Belgium. It is about every violation of hosting protocols that were supposed to matter, but are treated as easily dispensible this corner of the western world. The focus here is on the only host country of three that FIFA – namely its big cheese Gianni Infantino – seems to care about, the United States.
News of Fortress USA bearing down on its footballing visitors – players, teams, media, spectators – has never stopped. The Somalian referee refused entry; the Iranian player and photographer detained at the airport, with the photographer deported; Ivory Coast and Senegal journalists facing visa refusals or restrictions around travel; fans with tickets being turned away regardless of whether they were from Scotland or Morocco; and FIFA revoking tickets purchased by Iranians.
There is more: the Iranian team being treated as if they were part of a drive-thru burger service, not a football World Cup. The No.2 team from the most populous continent on earth was forbidden from spending a night on US soil. They went back and forth from their base in Tijuana, Mexico through US immigrations and customs hours before and after playing three of their four first-round matches in the US.
These ghastly events kept taking place outside the cracking sound and light show that was the US’ World Cup, wrapped in cellophane, featuring Norwegian synchro-rowing and daily shots of Infantino and US celebrities. As fans we swallowed the unfairness and forced our imaginations to abandon thoughts of routine indignity that would have seeped into the core of everyone around the Iranian team. We would shed a few tears, be grateful for Capo Verde, focus on the football and turn our attention to the knock outs.
But there was more ooze left. On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that Donald Trump “intervened on behalf of star U.S. forward Folarin Balogun” and a few hours later FIFA lifted Balogun’s red-card suspension, enabling him to play in the round of 16 match against Belgium. (Belgium won 4-1). The Guardian said Trump had made three calls to FIFA “starting from Wednesday,” the day Balogun was red-carded after US played Bosnia-Herzegovina in San Francisco.
On Truth Social, the US president was to trumpet, “Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” There is every chance the American players were embarrassed by what transpired; imagine Daddy coming in uninvited to fight in the big boys’ corner.
It is no surprise that Trump called FIFA. The “red line that has been crossed”, as UEFA described the development, is that FIFA acquiesced so openly and so quickly. The ruling body of the biggest sport in the world showed itself open to a flexible discussion over an on-field decision from someone outside the event’s tight match-play circle who just happened to be the head of the host state.
None of what had transpired even before these phone calls would have been accepted or condoned had they happened in any previous World Cups – particularly, let’s say Russia2018 and Qatar2022. There would have been threats of withdrawals, bans, boycotts, cancellations and consequences, etc, etc.
FIFA had already danced past the ‘autonomy’ and ‘external interference’ fandango that is used to show up smaller nations and lower-run football bodies as administrative malpractice. Irrespective of ICE threats or visa cancellations, after all, Los Angeles will still hold the 2028 Olympics. In March 2023, Indonesia was stripped of its right to host the FIFA’s Under-20 World Cup because the governor of Bali asked that Israel be banned from competing in his province.
Why two weeks into this World Cup, FIFA suspended the ruling body of Nepal football and derecognised its teams across all ages, “due to flagrant violations of the FIFA Statutes linked to interference by a third-party.” Surely, Trump’s intervention now means that the Bureau of the FIFA Council, the 7-member emergency decision-making body which canned Nepal football, is well within its powers to suspend and de-recognise itself, “until further notice.”
After the Trump news broke, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who stepped down after 17 years due to the 2015 FIFA corruption scandal and faced charges in Swiss court himself, posted on X, “Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls.” Given his track record, his righteous outrage did provoke laughter. But surely this US leg of the 2026 football World Cup prompts a question to Infantino. So what if money is not openly/visibly involved – have you not already corrupted your World Cup again, this time for good?
No doubt there’s more brilliant football to follow and we will enjoy it, love it and remember it – but the bad taste that this US leg has left in the mouth is already part of the 2026 FIFA World Cup legacy.
