Emergency Gene Pool Gene Poll
Sorry for the intrusion. It’s just for a question.
Donald Trump, the president of the host country of the The World Cup, has just interceded to have a red-card decision overturned that would have prevented the star player on the exciting American team from playing in today’s crucial game against Belgium. Now he gets to play.
Trump admits he phoned the head of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, the selfsame man who awarded Trump some bogus Peace Prize, and lobbied him to overturn the decision. The guy did.
The red card was controversial. Many observers felt it should not have been assessed.
Has Donald Trump befouled The World Cup? In other words, if the U.S. wins now, will the win be tainted?
That’s it.
It should not have been a red card in my opinion. It definitely wasn’t a “clear and obvious error” which would be required to overturn the call on the field of no red card. And they likely violated the video review protocols by using slow motion and still frames although the rules are vague enough that they might not have. So Balogun playing today is a just outcome.
But just outcomes achieved through corrupt means are not justice. If an innocent defendant bribes a jury to acquit him, that’s still a perversion of justice. If a defendant bribes a judge to throw out tainted evidence on procedural grounds and it leads to his acquittal, even if that was the legally correct thing for the judge to do, that’s still a perversion of justice. And if a notoriously corrupt US President convinces a notoriously corrupt FIFA executive to wipe out an incorrectly issued red card, it disgraces both the game and the presidency.
I love the irony that the player he intervened on behalf of as a birthright citizen.