NEW HAVEN — Football is a victim of this mess. The fallout from Folarin Balogun’s red card is Fifa’s worst scandal since Sepp Blatter’s resignation in 2015, so it was nice to hear the old boy piping up on social media to offer some stinging criticism of his old employer’s behaviour. Never thought I’d say this, but can I hear more from Sepp?
And less from Donald, if possible. On Monday afternoon UK time, President Trump started talking about Balogun’s suspension being suspended and everybody sat a little closer to the edge of their seats. Trump confirmed that he had intervened directly with Fifa. He accused the referee of being “suspect” and insisted that the tournament needed to have Balogun back on the pitch.
Republican senator Ted Cruz then somehow said the quiet part louder than Trump, which I presumed was scientifically impossible. Thanking Trump for getting the red card removed, Cruz said: “There was a reason the Fifa trophy sat here for as long as it did”.
By any reasonable measure, that should be enough to launch an investigation that could see the USA kicked out of the World Cup. Fifa’s statutes bar Governmental or ministerial interference. It’s hard to see how this doesn’t meet the criteria. But then, obviously: we are not living in reasonable times.
We should be grateful to Trump and Cruz, even as they stain football and its greatest show. Such is their addiction to self-promotion, we see how the sausages are made. These people cannot help but talk, until those who we perceive as the bad guys want them to stop even more than we do. There would be comedy in this were it not so damn tragic.
There is another victim here too: Folarin Balogun. He has done nothing wrong, save for a clumsy challenge that received an unfortunate red card. It was a decision that Balogun was disappointed with but accepted, exactly the same as his suspension. He is a fine footballer who may well be on the cusp of a big move this summer. And his career is being redefined: The One With The Diplomatic Incident.
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That is the epitome of Trump’s presidency. Balogun was born in New York City while his Nigerian-born parents were visiting the USA. His mother was barred from boarding a flight to the UK and her son was born in Brooklyn. He thus holds American citizenship through birthright via the Fourteenth Amendment.
On the first day of his second term. Trump signed an executive order to remove birthright citizenship. Only last week, the Supreme Court struck down the order to hand the President a significant defeat. Now Trump is championing a birthright citizen because it suits his own self-promotion.
“The Good Immigrant” principle is a stereotype that describes those who are perceived as productive, culturally assimilated or useful as being deserving of respect and compassion in a way that others are not. It uses discrimination to make binary judgements. Ian Wright discussed the topic around how black footballers are “supposed” to behave. That is what it means to be a person of colour to many: championed when you’re considered worthy of it, not when you’re not.
Balogun is Trump’s Good Birthright Citizen. The President doesn’t know what a red card means but knows that Balogun is one of the better players and so champions his cause because it suits his own agenda. He is a passive stooge in an autocratic leader’s determination to flaunt the power that he can wield.
And now Balogun has no choice but to ride the tidal wave and hope to stay swimming. He cannot recuse himself from the squad or be seen as possessing a loser mentality and appearing ungrateful (one of the great crimes of “The Bad Immigrant”. If he plays and scores the circus keeps on rolling. If he plays badly he will be tossed aside by those who now purport to champion his cause.
That is the sickest element of this rotten case. Football loses out; Folarin Balogun loses out more. He asked for none of the mania nor invited it with his behaviour. The tornado came anyway because he was a useful stooge. They do not respect Balogun for who he is, but what he can do for them and how he can make them look better.
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Kat Lucas: I didn’t think Fifa could stoop any lower for Trump – but this is astonishing Pete Hall: How England pulled off one of their greatest World Cup wins since 1966Hence then, the article about the balogun red card has exposed donald trump s utter hypocrisy was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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