Beauty and the Beast
I call offside. I need sports as an escape from the Trump-dominated news cycle. Since my wife and I have watched TV (all of it, seriously), and I’ve memorized the first five seasons of The Office, sports are the only escape I have left. And no sporting event has provided that escape as powerfully as the World Cup. And it worked for a while. But, like everything else, the beautiful game has been soiled by the ugliest American. The place we all went for a break from Trump is now being dominated by headlines about him. There is no escape. The World Cup has become one more algae-filled pool reflecting the orange pathological prevaricator whose distorted open-mouthed image ripples over everything. I guess we need to offer some credit where credit is due. You know how hard it is to be more corrupt than FIFA? “President Trump called Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, in the hours after the United States men’s soccer team played Wednesday and asked him to review the suspension of the team’s top goal scorer in the World Cup, Folarin Balogun, after he was given a red card, according to four people familiar with the conversation. On Sunday, FIFA reversed the suspension, announcing that Mr. Balogun would be eligible to play Monday against Belgium. The reversal is highly unusual and is the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended after being sent off in the World Cup.” (Maybe Trump can get Infantino to negotiate a new peace deal with Iran…) I’m partly leading with this story because it’s dominated headlines across the globe, and it fits into a storyline that has more countries viewing America as corrupt. And I’m partly leading with it in what will probably be a futile effort to get it out of my mind and into a newsletter in time for me to actually enjoy the game this evening. I mean, this has got to be the last time Trump will insert himself into this story. It’s not like he’s giving out the winning trophy. Oh, wait…
+ “Following Wednesday’s victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina, White House FIFA World Cup Task Force executive director Andrew Giuliani alerted President Donald Trump to Balogun’s punishment for a rash tackle — removal from the Bosnia match and a routine one-match suspension that would keep him out of a must-win encounter against Belgium.” Politico: Inside the White House push to get Folarin Balogun back on the field. And from the WSJ (Gift Article): Inside the White House Campaign to Overturn a World Cup Red Card. (I would say it’s ironic that Trump’s intervention in this matter will result in a birthright American getting to play for the US, but Trump had irony overturned, too.)
+ Here’s the latest from The Guardian.
