The (mostly) Beautiful Game
The football has been excellent. The governance less so.
In a somewhat dialectical spirit, I’d like to bring together two takes on whether Trump’s intervention in the Balogun red card case was legitimate or a historic breach of FIFA’s political neutrality.
On one hand, FIFA’s own disciplinary code (specifically Article 27) does allow its judicial bodies to suspend the implementation of a sanction. Infantino maintained throughout that “FIFA’s judicial bodies are independent. They operate autonomously, apply the FIFA Disciplinary Code, and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them.” Secretary of State Rubio, admitting things were “maybe turning into an international incident,” noted that Balogun’s “head wasn’t even looking down” during the challenge. The red card came via VAR review, and VAR has generated controversy throughout this tournament.
On the other hand, this is the first time in modern World Cup history that a red card has not resulted in a match suspension. Trump personally took credit:
Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice! President DONALD J. TRUMP.
Sepp Blatter wrote that “Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls.” UEFA called the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.” The Belgian federation noted that, uniquely for this match, FIFA omitted the automatic suspension section from the pre-match meeting, and when they asked why, didn’t receive an answer.
I think both of these takes have something to them, but the political neutrality concern is the more serious one. Infantino has called Trump “a close friend,” attended the inauguration, created the FIFA Peace Prize specifically for Trump after he didn’t win the Nobel version, and declared on Instagram after Trump’s inaugural rally that “together, we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world.” The last time a red card at a World Cup didn’t result in a suspension was 1962: Brazil’s Garrincha, the Chilean president backed a petition, Peru’s president reportedly called the referee. Brazil won the final 3-1.
FairSquare has now referred Infantino to IOC ethics investigators for breach of political neutrality. The Norwegian football federation (of which more shortly) has backed this. The IOC said it’s “watching everything play out.”
Markets are saying there is essentially no chance that the decision is reversed, with the possibility of Trump interfering in the tournament for a second time being real.
Belgium won 4-1 anyway. Their post-match social was a photo of Lukaku’s last-minute goal captioned “Overturn this.”
The precedent, it turns out, was immediately useful. England's Jarell Quansah received a straight red card on Sunday night for a tackle on Jesús Gallardo in the 3-2 win over Mexico. Labour MP Noah Law (perhaps one of the more important things the MP of St Austell and Newquay got to do) promptly wrote a public letter to Infantino asking for the ban to be reviewed, directly citing the Balogun decision.
"Whilst I believe that it was right for Jarell Quansah to have received this red card and that refereeing rules must be applied consistently," the letter said, "I believe it would be right to delay his suspension until after the completion of the World Cup."
Thomas Tuchel was asked, perhaps half-jokingly, whether Trump could get involved. FIFA has not yet responded and Quansah remains suspended.
Now, an enormous upset.
Erling Haaland scored twice in New York on Sunday, and Brazil (five-time champions, pre-tournament favourites) are out. Norway have never done anything like this at a World Cup. Haaland has seven goals in four appearances.
Markets price Norway’s chances of winning the World Cup at around 6%. This makes sense; they have a tough draw ahead of them.
Haaland vs England is the match I’m looking forward to. England have been well-organised under Tuchel, Bellingham has been excellent, and Haaland scores in basically every game.
All three co-hosts are eliminated. Canada fell 3-0 to Morocco. Mexico lost 3-2 to England at the Estadio Azteca, ending a 22-match unbeaten streak. Portugal lost to Spain 1-0, ending Cristiano Ronaldo's World Cup career.
France are the heavy tournament favourites. They've won five games without needing extra time, having scored freely and conceded almost nothing, and they just beat Morocco yesterday in Boston in an impressive display of skill.
Spain haven’t conceded a goal in the tournament, but haven’t dominated their matches since the group stage. Their game with Belgium is currently underway.
Argentina narrowly survived Egypt in extra time, during which period their odds to win the tournament reportedly reached +4500 at certain books. Manifold’s own graph was also…messy.
Enzo Fernández scored in the 93rd minute. Messi has seven goals in the tournament, leading the Golden Boot.
Golden Boot: Mbappe (8), Messi (8), Haaland (7), Kane (6). All four are still in the tournament.. Haaland was doubting his own chances on his Snapchat stories, accepting he had almost certainly lost the race after Messi’s performance, but his execution against Brazil has almost certainly dramatized things.
The ManifoldSports market has seen high trader participation across all 104 World Cup matches and is breaking expectations.
The auto-resolve system has been generating and resolving match markets throughout all of this. The official ManifoldSports games are all live and tradeable through the quarterfinals and beyond, and if you’re interested in user-created markets alongside the official games: group finishes, player props, and stranger things, the Community Tab at manifold.markets/sports/world-cup-2026 has them.
Happy Forecasting!
- Above the Fold