In the World Cup, Belgium is playing the USA in Seattle tonight—Belgium is running scared.
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The team appealed a FIFA decision to suspend the suspension of USA star striker Folarin Balogun. Regarding the intricacies of the appeals process, the devil is in the details, but let’s focus on the big picture.
The USA was wronged by the original referee’s decision to red card Folarin (in a previous World Cup match) which entails an automatic one-game suspension — meaning he’d miss the Belgium match. FIFA dug deep and came across Article 27, which provided justification for suspending Folarin’s ban.
For sure, it was a messy process, and provides fodder to other teams who question FIFA’s impartiality, especially given Gianni Infantino’s (FIFA president) coziness with President Trump.
Nevertheless, I can’t fathom how a reversal (of the original player suspension) can be appealed — it already was! Worse still is that after having accepted Belgium’s appeal of the appellate decision, FIFA cannot guarantee a final decision before tonight’s kickoff. At best, the appeal will be heard just hours before. It’s a big ol’ klusterfuk.
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But let’s stick to the big picture: two wrongs don’t make a right. Indeed, if FIFA can be this “flexible” in the future, that may be salubrious. Why should a player suspension be “automatic” anyway? The red card that prompted it wasn’t automatic — instead, it took bizarre, even unseemly, intervention from the Video Assistant Refs.
Perhaps this is a learning opportunity: FIFA can add more verbiage to their precious Article 27 that provides clearer and stronger rationale for alleviating the ramifications of a preposterous red-card decision by an incompetent ref.
In the meantime, Belgian soccer officials are not doing anyone, including themselves, any favors. Confusion about starting lineups and tactics prevail. Belgium was known as the Cockpit of Europe. When it comes to soccer, they are just the pits. Or should that be cocks?
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Image generated by ChatGPT.