Somewhere between England’s third goal against Mexico on Sunday night and my second glass of something cold enough to hurt, my phone lit up with the news that FIFA had suspended Folarin Balogun’s one-match ban.
Not overturned, you understand. Suspended. Parked for a “probationary period” of one year, like a sixth-former caught smoking behind the bike sheds who has promised, hand on heart, never to do it again.
The ban existed for the most boring reason imaginable: the rules. Balogun was sent off against Bosnia and Herzegovina for a nasty stamp on Tarik Muharemovic’s ankle, VAR had a look, and out came the red card. Under FIFA’s regulations a straight red brings an automatic one-match suspension. No appeal, no haggling. That is the entire point of the word automatic.
Except, it turns out, when the president of the host nation picks up the telephone. Donald Trump confirmed, quite cheerfully, that he had called Gianni Infantino to ask for a review of the card, on the expert basis that, in his own words, “I didn’t know what the hell a red card was.” Days later FIFA’s disciplinary committee reached for Article 27 of its own code, suspended the ban, fined US Soccer $40,000 for form’s sake, and Balogun trotted out against Belgium in Seattle on Monday night.
And all I could think of, watching this unfold, was Biff Tannen.
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