NOW we know what how much Fifa REALLY cares about the integrity of football: NOTHING
By bowing to an apparent White House request to rip up its own rulebook and clear US striker Falorin Balogun to play against Belgium, Fifa has destroyed, FOREVER, the idea that football comes first.
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Fifa have sensationally reversed Folarin Balogun’s red card against Bosnia Credit: AP
President Trump thanked Fifa for reversing the red card Credit: AP
Even in the darkest days of the world body, when the FBI raided its Zurich hotel base to arrest half the ruling executive committee in 2015, we could at least trust that the essential honesty of the 90 minutes on the pitch remained unsullied.
No more. Not when Fifa is prepared to throw all of that up in the air.
Yes, there IS a precedent.
Just the 64 years ago, when the President of Chile intervened to get Brazil’s star winger Garrincha freed to play in the 1962 World Cup Final after his semi-final dismissal for retaliation against the host nation.
FIFA U-TURN
Folarin Balogun’s red card SUSPENDED with USA striker now available vs Belgium
AZTECA AMBUSH
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But that was a different time.
Balogun did not go out to injure Bosnia’s Tarik Muharemovic.
But you only had to watch his leg and ankle bend under the impact to see it was a clear and unquestioned red card.
Fifa’s rulebook is clear, too: if a player is sent off, they automatically serve a ban of AT LEAST one game.
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Indeed, the US did not even make an appeal for clemency.
They knew that the only argument was over the length of Balogun’s suspension.
Suddenly, that is no longer the case.
No amount of bluster, of pointing to a sub-clause in the disciplinary code that has NEVER been used in such circumstances, can alter what is now abundantly evident.
