The Ref Stop

US v Bosnia

The Ref Stop
The Netflix documentary on FIFA was good
Two things I took away from it
1) The structure of the governance of football lends itself to being corrupt. No matter who works for them, they'll end up corrupt by design
2) The future is not one of financial corruption. It's one of political influence
It's therefore no surprise to see it play out this way. Like Capitalism, it has a destiny and there's nothing (not that we yet know of) to stop it in its tracks
If it wasn't Infantino, it would be someone else
 
Belgium have gone even stronger with a second statement ...

Following its previous statement, the RBFA wishes to publicly explain the events of the past few hours.

After learning through media reports of Fifa’s decision to lift the automatic suspension of player Balogun, the RBFA sent a letter to Fifa requesting a copy of the decision, an explanation of the process that had been followed, and setting out its position regarding the applicable regulations.

As its only response, Fifa sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by Fifa.

For an appeal to be admissible, Fifa’s own regulations state that the reasoned decision must first have been communicated to the appellant. While the RBFA was merely seeking legitimate explanations, Fifa itself created an appeal and immediately ensured that it would be declared inadmissible.

All of this occurred while Fifa simultaneously refused to respond to the RBFA’s legitimate requests.

Furthermore, during the match coordination meeting, Fifa deliberately removed the section concerning the automatic suspension of players from its presentation.

This topic had nonetheless been part of all such meetings before each of the previous four matches. The RBFA questioned Fifa, both orally and in writing, about the reasons for this change, yet once again received no response.

To be clear, as of this moment, the RBFA has still not received any decision or any explanation from Fifa regarding this matter. It therefore has no alternative but to challenge the player’s eligibility for the upcoming match.

Regardless of the sporting outcome of this match, the RBFA is deeply concerned by the course of events and will continue to fight in the coming hours, days and months in defence of the fundamental principles of ethics, fair competition, and the interests of football as a whole.
 
So each pre match video shown to all participants had a slide that included an automatic suspension policy.. my guess is included players that were on yellow cards and would miss the next game if got another (as a reminder more likely).
But in today's edition, shown to Belgium (and USA im guessing) this particular slide was removed?

If thats not a conspiracy then I dont know what.

Fifa have completely tainted this world cup.

Infantino was elected in 2016 to fifa with the speech including:

"And we will restore the image of FIFA and the respect of FIFA, and everyone in the world will applaud us and will applaud all of you for what we'll do in FIFA in the future. We have to be proud of FIFA, and everyone has to be proud of FIFA and we have to be proud of what we'll do together in FIFA.

FIFA has gone through sad times, moments of crisis, but those times are over," Infantino said. "We need to implement the reform and implement good governance and transparency. We also need to have respect.

"We're going to win back this respect through hard work, commitment and we're going to make sure we can finally focus on this wonderful game that is football."
A year after, Trump is elected president of USA.
2018, a year after Trump is elected, 2 years after Infantino is elected, is when the 3 nations were awarded the competition.

Prior to being awarded, Trump stated that 6 countries could be refused entry and that Infantino said this was not good enough.
An article, dated 9th March 2017, said:

"Donald Trump’s travel ban could prevent the US from hosting the World Cup in 2026, Fifa has warned.

Gianni Infantino, the president of world football’s governing body, said on Thursday that Trump’s revised executive order, which temporarily bars entry to the US for citizens from six majority-Muslim countries, could invalidate any bid from the US. The president’s policy, Infaninto suggested, is incompatible with tournament regulations.

Infantino told reporters in London: “Teams who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious.”

Iran was one of 6 nations on that list even back then.

So despite 9 years ago saying they wont be able to host if they refuse, they turned a blind eye when Trump denied entry to a referee, Iran (other than day visas) and a few players.
And got to keep their tournament.
 
To me, it stinks. Politics, politicians need to get away from this sport. They are the cancer of the game.

It has really put quite the shadow on the tournament.
 
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