POLITICAL meddling has doomed the 2026 World Cup.
It doesn’t matter what country eventually raises football’s most coveted trophy. This year’s competition will be remembered most for the unabashed intervention of no less than the president of the host country and the indulgence of the controversial head of the sport’s governing body.
The scandalous spectacle began when United States striker Folarin Balogun was issued a red card for tackling a player from Bosnia and Herzegovina during a knockout match on July 1. For the infraction, Belogun was docked a one-game suspension.
The host team won, 2-0, but the suspension meant that its prized player had to sit out the match against Belgium, a serious title contender.
US President Donald Trump, never one to miss an opportunity to hog the spotlight, readily dived into the controversy. He called up FIFA President Gianni Infantino, claiming Balogun’s suspension was a “horrible” injustice that would stain the tournament.
And lo and behold, Balogun’s suspension was temporarily lifted, allowing him to play against Belgium. Trump promptly thanked Infantino “for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!”
The FIFA decision, however, stoked a firestorm of outrage. Viral memes ridiculed Trump and Infantino. Football associations slammed FIFA for caving in to political pressure.
UEFA, European football’s governing body, warned that the Balogun ruling could set a precedent for the remainder of the World Cup, with other players likely to expect similar treatment in comparable circumstances.
“We express our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision,” UEFA said.
Even Belgium’s opposition Socialist party had something to say. “Shame on you! When money calls the shots, the World Cup loses all credibility,” it said, addressing FIFA. “Adapting the rules to please Trump, trying to cheat to win — what a deplorable image for FIFA, for the soccer World Cup, and for the United States. Rules must be respected by everyone, in sports as in life.”
The rage subsided somewhat after Belgium trounced the US, 4-1, in what many considered to be karmic justice. The damage to FIFA’s already scarred reputation, however, cannot be overlooked.
Scandals pockmark FIFA’s history. In the late 1970s, it launched an aggressive campaign for commercial TV and marketing rights, and later documentaries exposed how multimillion-dollar contracts transformed the organization into a money-laundering machine.
In 2015, the US Department of Justice charged top-echelon FIFA officials of receiving over $150 million in bribes. The controversy ended the 17-year reign of Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.
Perhaps the biggest blight in FIFA’s annals was its selection of Qatar as host of the 2022 World Cup.
Speculations surfaced after the small but oil-rich nation bested fancied rivals like the United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia, despite having no football infrastructure at all.
FIFA also appeared to have turned a blind eye to Qatar’s repressive treatment of migrant workers and its strict anti-LGBTQ laws.
The International Labor Organization had called out Qatar for not fully investigating the unexplained deaths of several thousand foreign workers who were hired to build the eight new stadiums and the supporting network of roads and bridges for the World Cup.
The Human Rights Watch also claimed that Qatari security forces rounded up LGBT people ahead of the World Cup. Among those detained were four Filipino gay men.
As a further act of accommodation, FIFA revised its traditional calendar, shifting the tournament to November-December to avoid Qatar’s scorching summer heat.
The backlash over the choice of Qatar as World Cup host forced FIFA to allow an investigation by the US justice department, Swiss authorities and its own ethics committee.
The inquiry exposed endemic bribery within the organization’s executive committee, and led to the firing of 15 of the committee’s 24 members.
The executive committee was subsequently abolished.
Blatter, who was FIFA president when Qatar won the hosting rights, later admitted that choosing Qatar was “a mistake.”
Following the 2026 World Cup fiasco, FIFA needs to reform its governance and review its political boundaries.
The World Cup has been described as “a unique arena” that is “supposed to represent the best of us — our incredible diversity and our common humanity.”
FIFA must do its best to keep it that way.
