What a fun World Cup this has been... If only FIFA and Argentina hadn't ruined the whole thing.
It's a sentiment shared by many online, who believe that this year's tournament has brought the culture of football further into disrepute - whether it's the exorbitant ticket prices, the controversial "hydration breaks", the Trump-Infantino relationship leading to the infamous red card scandal, some dubious refereeing and allegations of favouritism... The list goes on, and went on up until the final, in which Spain defeated Argentina 1-0 in extra time.
Indeed, FIFA has confirmed that Argentina will face an investigation regarding altercations with Spain players, with players like Nahuel Molina, Leandro Paredes and Thiago Almada appearing to be involved, as well as assistant coach Roberto Ayala.
Molina appeared to throw a punch at Spain’s captain Rodri as he ran past him, while Paredes clashed with Spain’s Eric Garcia.
Faced with these pathetic scenes, FIFA's disciplinary committee has appointed an ethics prosecutor to assess what happened.
The actions of the Argentinian team could be judged as "violating the basic rules of decent conduct" and "behaving in a way that brings the sport of football and/or Fifa into disrepute".
This has been a long time coming, as supporting Argentina during the World Cup became increasingly problematic as the competition progressed. The team and their fans went viral for all the wrong reasons – be it racist chants, some questionable calls during the quarter-final game against Egypt which seemed to suggest favouritism, a banner that read "Las Malvinas son Argentinas" ("The Falklands are Argentine") during their post-semifinal celebration against England - to name but a few.
The conspiracy theory that the World Cup was rigged in Argentina's favour gained much traction online, with many expressing their "disgust" and anger through AI-generated videos and photos.
Take a look at some examples below:
The aforementioned disciplinary and ethics prosecutor has the power to enforce a ban globally, and a petition titled "Argentina Out" has called for the country to be kicked out of the tournament permanently.
The petition description accuses FIFA and the referees of being "biased toward Lionel Messi and Argentina", adding: "Why should the rest of the world compete when the winner has already been decided? Kick Argentina out of the World Cup and give everyone else a fair chance."
Now closed, the appeal has more than 23 million signatures - 23,316,108 to be precise.
Most impressive of all is how this has nearly broken a world record, as the Guinness World Record for the most signatories stands at 24,319,181.
That record still belongs to the 1997 Jubilee 2000 movement, which called for the cancellation of unpayable debts owed by the world's poorest countries by the end of the year 2000.
So close...
"Over 23 million people from 170 countries signed this petition in under a week," states the viral Argentina Out petition. "FIFA ignored us but Spain delivered. Thank you Spain."
