The World Cup quarterfinal match between Spain and Belgium isn’t until today. That leaves time for President Trump to find another horse’s head for the bed of his goombah, Gianni Infantino, and inspire him to overturn Belgium’s 4-1 thrash of the U.S. Monday at Seattle Stadium.
It’s not over until the fat prexy cheats.
If Trump can deliver an uninvited reversal of a referee’s decision that influenced one major sports event, why stop there? Surely there are others. The city of Seattle should petition the White House to reverse the 2015 Super Bowl result after “discovering” the New England Patriots were, um, offside prior to Russell Wilson’s end-zone interception that denied the Seahawks a triumph.
Rigged? Of course. Must have been.
Sports outcomes apparently are the new frontier for presidential power freed from the rules-based global order that the U.S. had largely created and sustained. After Trump proudly admitted he called Infantino, the FIFA don suspended the red card issued by game officials to U.S. striker Falorin Balogun in the 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina on July 1. The original foul call itself was subject to controversy, but the consequence was more significant — not only ejection from the game, but for the subsequent match with Belgium.
That’s when self-appointed soccer expert Trump called Infantino, a man immersed in nearly as many corruption complaints as the president. When news broke of the red card suspension, the soccer world exploded with outrage. One of Balogun’s teammates looked at his phone and said he thought the news bulletin was AI slop. European soccer’s governing body, UEFA, messaged that the decision “crossed the red line” and was unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.
One of sports’ most appealing cultural values is the widespread acceptance of rules. Most kids learn that impulsive contempt for how games are structured is an easy way to get alone time. Someone obviously missed the lesson.
Once the bedrock is shaken, especially from the highest levels, integrity begins to crack.
Trump, of course, revels in fracture. He was proud of his feat, even if it benefited Balogun, who is a birthright U.S. citizen, a class of people Trump reviles. Balogun was born 25 years ago to Nigerian parents who were British citizens. Just before his birth, his mother, in New York, was denied a flight home by the airline that deemed her too near her delivery date. So her son was born in Brooklyn. According to FIFA rules, Balogun could have chosen to represent one of his three countries. He chose America, where he became the best goal scorer on its 2026 Cup team.
But the controversy—called “a pardon” by Fox Sports TV studio commentator Alexi Lalas—overruled all other story lines. The modest denials of subversion were blown away by the White House itself. At a press conference in the Oval Office on another subject, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Addams Family) engaged in felony obeisance by swerving to compliment Trump, who was standing 10 feet away, over his hijacking of sports integrity.
“It was spectacular,” Cruz said. “There was a reason the FIFA trophy sat here for as long as it did.”
The reference was to FIFA’s embarrassing “peace prize” awarded to Trump by Infantino during the Cup draw in December. A New York Times writer this week altered the reference to the “appease prize.”
Then came the Monday match.
The favored Yanks were blasted by a Belgian team missing two starters due to injury, including Kevin De Bruyne, 35, regarded as one of the greatest players in English Premier League history. The Americans, suddenly the black hats in the soccer world through no fault of their own, played terribly. They attempted only seven shots. The first shot on goal came in the 79th minute. The only score came on a free kick.
All the positives built through their first four games, including the improving chance to advance beyond the round of 16, which the U.S. had last done in 2002, imploded gruesomely. It is hard to know the impact of the Trump hijacking, but having been around professional athletes competing at the highest levels, I know the value of clear-minded focus. Just imagine all the texts, calls and media queries each American player and coach received ahead of the game asking the same thing: WTF?
Participants always immediately deny being distracted. What else can they say that doesn’t sound like an excuse?
The actions of the Belgian players after the game spoke loudly on the topic. On the field and in the locker room, they broke into imitations of the mega-dorky Trump YMCA dance. Turned out the mockeries were their only disjointed moves of the day.
The loss also squandered a large asset: the best home-field advantage among the U.S. host cities.
Three hours ahead of game time, an estimated 25,000 fans began surging south on Seattle’s waterfront, including Alaskan Way, Western Avenue, Harbor Steps and First Avenue. The immense March to the Match was boisterous but orderly, seeming to sense they were a key part of the U.S. sports story as long as mayhem was averted. They even held their position to let a much smaller crowd of Belgian fans enter Seattle Stadium first after marching from Victory Hall, which had been their First Avenue drinking base for weeks.
In the best outdoor stadium for an audio riot, soccer fans gave their all during the sixth and final sellout. The loss can’t dispel the notion that in Seattle, the World Cup experienced a world-class celebration of the sport — and some of what is best about America in its 250th year.
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Impossible to play your best when a win will mean you cheated.
Distraction is impossible to measure, yet a relentless presence.
What was a joyous few weeks celebrating Seattle’s—and indeed, the world’s–diversity (athletic and otherwise) became a moment of sadness: sports are a way to escape yet come together, but intervention by political “leaders” spoils it.
I would’ve been fine to see the USA play without Flo, and with soccer, who knows? For those of us who enjoy the sport but happen to be citizens of the USA, at least we should be able to watch the rest without qualm (the significant exception being Infantino and corrupt FIFA, which hearkens back to the days when the IOC was blatantly corrupt).
The mix of politics with global sports is inescapable. But I don’t recall such brazen post-match interference from a politician that both succeeded and failed.
Incidentally, Art (and everyone), if you haven’t read Daniel Beekman’s article in the “Seattle Times” today about Zjada Baydass and her aspirations to play for the Palestinian national team in the women’s World Cup, you’ll undoubtedly be inspired when you do…
Great referral.
Had Balogun’s reinstatement followed protocol (i.e. an official U.S. Soccer appeal and a hearing with a FIFA panel) that would’ve been OK. Heck, if he had stayed suspended and the USMNT pulled off a giant win-one-for-the-Gipper effort, I’d have been fine, win or lose. Instead, when I heard of Trump’s involvement, a pit grew in my stomach, and I knew it wouldn’t end well. The dude simply can’t keep from making everything about himself and ruining it for everyone (Ryder Cup, Knicks, even Olympic hockey). Though one of the gutsiest and more talented USMNTs I can remember laid an egg — at best — he created unnecessary chaos for us and bulletin board material for everyone else.
It’s especially galling since this Cup’s atmosphere has been exceptional. I love Americans experiencing the different fan traditions, like the Netherlands-Japan match in Arlington where the Dutch staged a two-mile orange march (complete with an orange bus) to the stadium, and the Japanese fans brought trash bags and cleaned up the stands after the game. Then add how much the visiting fans have dug America. I love those videos of French fans devouring barbecue and English fans chugging root beer floats. I especially enjoyed them marveling at how friendly we are, even saying that global media has been “lying” to them about the crime and xenophobia.
So I felt a renewed pride in being American as I wore my USMNT jersey during the 250th. Independence Day festivities, as both the world and I were re-connecting to the goodness at the core of the USA. But thanks to the ugliest of Ugly Americans, that good will’s been bulldozed.
Fine sentiments, Kirkland. My experience was led by the March to Match, when thousands set aside their frets and showed pride, joy and stamina. I wish many others could have experienced what you described.
Trump is getting lazy, maybe even a little sloppy. Simply calling his Trump Tower tenant only to get one player reinstated was never going to be enough. Not against a decent European team. That’s nothing more than window dressing.
No, if he really wanted to win the match, Trump needed go all in. He needed to bribe the referee. Nothing less was going do the trick. Any taxi driver could have told him that. Maybe Infantino could have helped set that up. And that actually would have been useful — not just futile and embarrassing. The harsh truth is that Trump misses Michael Cohen far more than he is willing to admit. Cohen may have been a bit crude but he got the job done. Him and Roger Stone.
And as for the first guy, poor Roy Cohn, he must be tossing and turning in his grave. He did his best to teach Trump to be thorough as well as ruthless. But some people never learn. Maybe just too busy admiring themselves in the mirror. Hey, who really knows what’s going on beneath that varnished yellow mop.
As usual, Trump had to spoil everything. He’s a master at one thing — deflating joy.
Great story, especially the part about all the fan joy and the gracious behavior toward the Belgium fans.
My theory about the infamous foul pardon is that Trump heard someone say Balogun’s name, thought it was “mulligan” and said, “No problem; I get those all the time.” What a putz.
Credit where credit is due.
Al well said. More insight to the game than all of the WC match commentators on Fox put together. Though to be fair, I gave up and turned the sound off while watching the games. I will withhold my opinion of pre and post game “analyst” Lexi Lalas.
Though credit should be given to the appeaser in chief, in that he did something that I thought would not happen during this WC, he united the whole world,
albeit against the US.