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No way, the soccer federations are corrupt? I'm shocked, I tell you.
At the risk of explaining the joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxnpY0owPkA
So you mean to tell me that they are in it for the money and not the love of the game?
It is tough for Belgium, but I don't expect them to protest too strongly and risk waking up with +10% tariffs on products they export to the USA.
no worries, then they'll just ship those products through one the other members of the EU

>The European Union allows goods to move freely between the 27 countries in the economic bloc, which would complicate any bid to impose trade restrictions on a single member state. Src: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8r1mzd8vygo

International football has to be one of the most corrupt communities in sports, which is saying something. Between bribing WC officials to sway votes on World Cup locations and awarding the tournament to a country that saw 6,500 deaths of workers building the stadiums[0], to implementing dynamic pricing at the current World Cup, a move like this feels very par for the course for these guys.

0: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/r...

From the article you linked :

>There have been 37 deaths among workers directly linked to construction of World Cup stadiums, of which 34 are classified as “non-work related” by the event’s organising committee.

And regarding the 6500 figure (for the 10 year period 2010-2020) :

>While death records are not categorised by occupation or place of work, it is likely many workers who have died were employed on these World Cup infrastructure projects,

The recent heatwave hitting Europe is said to have cause 1000 excess deaths in a week in France alone (again numbers are projections).

> Between bribing WC officials to sway votes on World Cup locations and awarding the tournament to a country that saw 6,500 deaths of workers building the stadiums

Qatar is a terrible place when it comes to treatment of workers, but that number of deaths is actually unusually low.

The 6500 figure was the deaths for all foreign workers in Qatar over a 10 year period, a country which uses foreign workers for almost all of its labor force (about 95% is foreign). They have around 2 million foreign workers. Compare to the number of citizens of Qatar which is around 400k.

6500 deaths among those foreign workers over that time period works out to a death rate of around 33 per 100k per year.

Compare that to the death rates for males aged 25-34 in the US, which is somewhere in the 160-250 range. I'm comparing to males in that age range because around 80% of the foreign workers in Qatar are male and they are predominantly 25-39.

Qatar's 5-8x lower death rate than the US still could be an indication that they have a serious problem with worker deaths, but to determine that someone would have to dive much deeper into details.

For example a significant component of the US deaths is poisoning (drug overdoses are counted as poisoning). Qatar has a very strong anti-drug policy with little tolerance and harsh penalties, so I'd expect that they don't have many drug deaths.

Same for drunk driving. They also are very intolerant of drunk driving, and consider a driver to be drunk if there is any detectable alcohol in their bloodstream after an accident. (Also, I'd expect most migrant workers don't drive).

The Guardian really should have noticed this and investigated. They really dropped the ball here.

The corruption is everywhere, small and large. You can't trust the game is not fixed now and you can't trust the government either.
It's probably going to come down to a whale bet on Polymarket, and Trump owed someone a call back.
Maybe it would have been better for Team USA if it had not been reversed.

Before the reversal the oddsmakers were putting USA vs Belgium at even or slightly in Belgium's favor. After the reversal the oddsmakers had USA as a slight but clear favorite.

I'd expect that if it had not been reversed it might have made USA feel like underdogs with something to prove which sometimes can inspire better play. Also it made have made Belgium overly confident knowing USA was missing its best scorer, which can lead to sloppy play.

After the reversal and the change in the odds USA might have been less inspired and Belgium might have been fired up.

Anyway, whether or not the reversal affected the outcome Belgium slaughtered USA, 4-1, and USA is out.

This annoys me, in a very American way, because whenever USA won a World Cup game Subway was giving a "USA Wins" coupon in their app for a footlong sub for something like $7.99.

Best result for the game, couldn't ask for better.

The US clearly "cheats" via political pressure on field decisions and Belgium kicked their sorry arses regardless.

Convicted fraud pressures organization with multiple historical fraudulent activities and convictions to commit fraud
> U.S. President Donald Trump called FIFA to ask it to review the case

Gotta cash in that Peace Prize sometimes, I guess

> saying world soccer's governing body had "crossed a red line" and undermined the integrity of the game

Ah yes, the bastion of integrity defending truth and justice.

Trump likely ruined it for America. Balogun was completely invisible. All the controversy and negative attention did not do him good.
Between this and the C.Ronaldo decision, I wonder if we're headed toward a future change to the automatic red card suspension. Part of what makes a red seem extreme for certain fouls is the automatic suspension.

The point of the suspension is to discourage deliberately violent actions when the current match isn't a major concern (i.e. late in games that aren't close, or when the result is largely immaterial). That obviously isn't the case here.

Ronaldo was at least banned for the next game before the rest was suspended
Glad Belgium won.
The rules need to be updated to better ensure accurate calls. If we can agree that Balogun's red card was overkill because his trip wasn't intentional then there should be a way to reverse the call. And Maradona's "hand of god" goal should have been reversed as well. There should be MORE than one ref on the pitch during these games. And spare me the, "This is how's it's always been" argument... It's the World Cup. Let's do better!
I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with the way the rule is written, the issue here is the way VAR was applied. VAR is only supposed to intervene when there is a “Clear and obvious error.”

Balugun’s play certainly “endangered the safety of an opponent”, as the red card rule reads. Intent doesn’t matter as far as the rule goes. But the call on the field will always be subject to the referee’s judgement on the field. They are weighing a variety of factors, and intent plays into that judgment I think.

Bologun’s challenge was certainly red card “worthy”, but I think most people agree that the initial yellow card was the right call, especially since it wasn’t intentional. The ref saw it full speed, made his judgement, and that should have been the end of it.

VAR likely overstepped their mandate here asking for the replay review. I don’t think that was a “Clear and obvious error.” so they influenced the ref to upgrade to red. It’s especially upsetting when there are many other glaring examples of yellow cards in the same tournament that they did not send to review.

The match commentator I was listening to during this game actually predicted an upgrade to a red once the VAR was announced. Their argument was basically what you said, this looks like a yellow live, and a red when viewed slowed down and in isolation. The question is, is this a flaw or a feature of the VAR system?
For these types of incidents VAR protocol is expressly to not offer the referee a slow-motion replay and to only let him see it in real time. Everyone knows that when you slow this stuff down it always looks worse, so the protocol is designed with that in mind.

That's why this was a misapplication of VAR. The on-field decision was not clearly and obviously wrong, and the manner in which VAR intervened was against their protocols for reviewing this type of incident.

There's always going to be a gray area when it comes to contact like Balogun's against Bosnia. Refereeing from one tournament to another isn't the same, the World Cup especially has this issue because the refs all come from different leagues around the world, each with their own skill levels and play styles. The technology helps to a degree, especially around more concrete rules like offside, but this will never fully go away, no matter how much process, people or technology is applied.
The on the pitch call was not a red card. VAR told the ref to go to the monitors to review and then the red card was given. If the on the pitch call stood, which was the right call, then we wouldn't be having the conversation.

The level of scrutiny we place on foot position when determining offsides with VAR is an example of the letter of the law vs the spirit of the law. Offsides was not meant to catch players who were half a foot length beyond the last non-goalie defender.

I'm not sure VAR is the net-benefit we think it is.

> I'm not sure VAR is the net-benefit we think it is.

It is for offside. Offside calls were so egregiously bad it was painful to watch. Any time a defense got burned badly, the flag would go up.

Early 2000's someone watched an entire world cup and found that 25% of offside calls were obviously wrong.

I just rewatched the US v Germany match from 1998, and Kobi Jones was called offside on a breakaway when he was onside by 4 yards when the ball was kicked.

Also, goal line and maybe handball seems to be handled pretty well.

Then perhaps it’s the offsides rule that needs revision. Do you think the spirit of the rule is captured by foot position analysis? If two players bodies are in alignment and the attackers leg is just beyond the leg of the defender, does that really matter? The rule was designed to stop attackers from sitting deep between the defenders and the goalie.
Ok, I agree with this. The offside rule is just weird. A person with a wide stance would simultaneously be close to be both endlines. In any normal sense if one person is further south, the other person is further north -- not so with the offside rule.

It also used to be that "even with was onside". Now there is no such thing as even with.

At this point with this tech, they could view both torses and say an entire torso has to be clear.

None of this helps soccer below the level with VAR.

The rule was designed to keep attackers from being "offside". For practical purposes, the offside trap has turned into a right for the defense.

At least the current rule is deterministic, rather than erring on the side of the defense over and over.

Maybe so, but if so then it should be integral that such decision needs to be taken by an independent panel, and not a single powerful individual of the organization, and that heads of state should not be allowed to influence such decision.
There is a rule to reverse the call on the books. Article 27 allows FIFA to replace the suspension for a probationary period. Of course the online mob didn't bother checking that.
The rule does exist, but in all of World Cup history, it has been used once for this purpose over 50 years ago. During a tournament, it is understood that a red card means an automatic suspension for at least the next match. That is something that is universally applied. FIFA are clearly breaking with precedent here by using an obscure rule to lift the suspension of the host nation's player, which very much looks like favouritism.
Quite especially when the process seems to have been triggered by the head of state of that host nation
FIFA also used the rule to allow Cristiano Ronaldo to play in this World Cup. Ronaldo got a red card in a World Cup qualifier, last November, for "violent conduct" (an elbow). It would have kept him out of the opening match for Portugal in this World Cup. He was issued a suspended suspension, under Article 27, allowing him to play.
So what? It has now been used twice. I challenge anyone who's a soccer fan to look at the play that led to the red card and say "Yeah, that deserved a red card" with a straight face.

The outcome was fair. That was a scandalous red card and a rule that exists to be sparingly used in situations like that was triggered. Hopefully it will keep being sparingly used but they should not hesitate to overturn unjust punishments that are clearly against the spirit of soccer.

Why are people so upset about it? Is Belgium afraid to face the full US squad? If Belgium wins, which is the most likely result, nobody will be able to say "the US could have won if it wasn't for that red card!"

Doesn't seem fair that Belgium has to alter their game plan the day before the match because FIFA dropped a totally unexpected decision 4 days after unequivocally stating there was no appeal process for the red card suspension.
Its not fair that US has to bench their leading scorer due to a mistake either.

So there's no way to please both sides.

But beating someone with one hand tied behind their back should not be preferable.

Gee, we're not talking about Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo here... What kind of super secret, complex scheme was Belgium creating for Balogun?
> Gee, we're not talking about Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo here

He's their leading scorer.

His exclusion seemed kind of important to you a couple posts back. Along with the Secretary of the Treasury, and the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize recipient.

I understand the anger and I read the article, which mentions that. The issue isn't the rule, it's that a head of state (and not just a head of state, a head of the largest host state) allegedly called FIFA and asked them to intervene.

This wouldn't be a story if FIFA decided internally that the card should be suspended, but that's not what happened, so here we are.