How FIFA Became FIFA

It's Tuesday, July seventh. If you're following the World Cup, you already know about the Balogun situation. Quick summary if you don't: the US played Bosnia last week at Levi's Stadium, and the US striker Folarin Balogun received a red card for a studs-up challenge on a Bosnian defender. Red cards come with an automatic one-match suspension, which meant Balogun would miss the Round of 16 match against Belgium. President Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino (in-fan-TEE-noh), asked for a review, and FIFA's disciplinary committee used a rarely invoked article in its rulebook to suspend the ban, making Balogun eligible to play. The US lost to Belgium 1-4 last night. Balogun, the player at the center of all of this, didn't score. All of that controversy, all of the international backlash, and the US went out anyway. It's the first time since 1962 that a red card during a World Cup hasn't resulted in a suspension. Belgium called the decision "astonishing." UEFA said FIFA "crossed a red line." And now there's a debate about whether Trump's intervention was appropriate or whether the red card was warranted in the first place, and I'm not going to wade into either of those questions because there's a more interesting one underneath them: how did FIFA become an organization where this kind of thing is even possible? Because when you look at FIFA's history, the Balogun decision isn't an anomaly. It's a Tuesday. On May 27, 2015, Swiss police walked into the Baur au Lac hotel in Zurich, one of the most expensive hotels in Switzerland, at 6 AM and arrested seven senior FIFA officials in their bathrobes. The arrests were the result of a years-long FBI investigation that produced a 47-count, 164-page criminal indictment alleging that FIFA officials had accepted $150 million in bribes over a period of more than two decades.

The indictment described what the US Department of Justice called "rampant, systemic, and deep-rooted" corruption within FIFA's leadership. Officials were accused of selling their votes for World Cup hosting rights, taking kickbacks on television and marketing contracts, and laundering money through shell companies in the Caribbean, South America, and the United States. Chuck Blazer, the former CONCACAF general secretary who had been secretly cooperating with the FBI since 2011, had worn a wire to FIFA meetings while working as an informant, reportedly concealing the recording device in a keychain. Blazer's lifestyle before his arrest was a story in itself: he lived in Trump Tower in Manhattan, earned millions from CONCACAF, maintained a separate apartment in the same building exclusively for his cats, and hadn't paid personal income taxes in over a decade. The IRS and FBI eventually turned him into a cooperating witness, and he spent years recording his colleagues at the highest levels of world football while living in a luxury apartment above Fifth Avenue.

The scope of the corruption was hard to exaggerate. Jack Warner, the former vice president of FIFA and president of CONCACAF, was accused of accepting a $10 million bribe in exchange for his vote to award the 2010 World Cup to South Africa. When the money was wired through FIFA accounts, Warner allegedly kept it for himself rather than distributing it to develop Caribbean football as intended. Sepp Blatter, who had been FIFA's president since 1998, was suspended and later banned for making a "disloyal payment" of 2 million Swiss francs to Michel Platini, the president of UEFA, for work Platini claimed to have done nine years earlier with no written contract. A subsequent investigation revealed that Blatter and two other senior officials had stolen $80 million from FIFA through "a coordinated effort to enrich themselves." The 2015 arrests were connected to a broader investigation into how FIFA awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, two decisions that had raised suspicions from the moment they were announced.

Qatar, a country smaller than Connecticut with a population of less than three million and summer temperatures that regularly exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit, was awarded the most prestigious tournament in sports over bids from the United States, Australia, Japan, and South Korea. The Sunday Times later published evidence based on a leak of millions of secret documents alleging that Qatari officials had paid bribes to FIFA executive committee members in exchange for their votes. FIFA commissioned its own investigator, a former US attorney named Michael Garcia, to look into the bids. Garcia produced a 430-page report. FIFA's ethics committee released a 42-page summary that Garcia publicly said misrepresented his findings, and then refused to release the full report.

The human cost of that decision became one of the defining stories of the 2022 tournament. Qatar built seven new stadiums and an entirely new city to host the World Cup, and the construction was done largely by migrant workers from South Asia and Africa working under the kafala (kah-FAH-lah) system, which tied their legal status to their employer, prevented them from leaving the country without permission, and left them vulnerable to wage theft, passport confiscation, and forced labor. The Guardian reported that over 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka died in Qatar between 2010 and 2020, the decade of World Cup construction. Qatar disputed the link between all of those deaths and stadium construction, but acknowledged that its labor practices needed reform and implemented changes only after sustained international pressure. Balogun isn't even the only example from this tournament. Cristiano Ronaldo received a red card suspension from a qualifying match last year that would have kept him out of Portugal's first two World Cup games. FIFA used the same Article 27 to suspend two of his three match bans, letting him play. When your star is too important to sit, the rules bend. And the current controversy isn't the first time a head of state has intervened in a World Cup red card. In 1962, Brazilian star Garrincha (gar-EEN-sha) got a red card in the semi-final against Chile, and Brazil's prime minister sent an official telegram directly to the FIFA president arguing he shouldn't be penalized. The Chilean president co-signed a petition pleading with FIFA to let him play. FIFA let him play in the final. Brazil won. Same playbook, 64 years apart.

What connects all of these examples, from the 2015 arrests to Qatar to the Balogun decision, is the same structural characteristic: there is no external accountability. FIFA governs itself, investigates itself, disciplines itself, and generates its own revenue without needing approval from any government or regulatory body. When it commissions a report that makes it look bad, it buries the report. When it invokes Article 27 to suspend a red card ban for the first time in 64 years, three days after the US president calls the FIFA president, nobody outside FIFA can overrule the decision. Belgium filed an appeal and FIFA rejected it on standing grounds, deciding that Belgium wasn't even a party to the case.

FIFA generated over $11 billion from the 2026 World Cup in television rights, sponsorships, and ticket sales. It keeps nearly all of that revenue. It's also the sole governing body of the most popular sport on Earth, which means national federations can't leave without leaving the sport itself. There's no competing league to join, no alternative governing body to appeal to, no market competition that forces reform. The regulatory capture concept from our episode last week applies here, except FIFA isn't being captured by an industry. FIFA IS the industry and the regulator simultaneously.

Infantino, who replaced Blatter in 2016 on a reform platform, has developed a close relationship with Trump that predates this tournament. FIFA awarded Trump its inaugural "peace prize" last year. Trump's 2025 financial disclosure revealed that Infantino had given him 10 tickets worth $15,000 to last summer's Club World Cup. The Balogun call wasn't a cold call between strangers. It was a conversation between two people who have been doing each other favors for at least two years, within an organization that has spent decades demonstrating that its rules are flexible when the people involved are powerful enough.

Whether the red card was warranted is a legitimate debate. The play was borderline, the referee reviewed slow-motion replays which is reportedly outside standard VAR protocol for World Cup matches, and reasonable people disagree about whether it was a serious foul. Whether a US president should be calling FIFA to influence that process is a different debate, and reasonable people disagree about that too. There's also an irony here that connects to our episode from last week: Balogun is only eligible to play for the United States because of birthright citizenship. His parents are Nigerian. His mother was visiting New York in 2001 and was prevented from flying home while seven months pregnant. Balogun was born in New York and was automatically granted citizenship. Days before Trump called FIFA on Balogun's behalf, the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship against an executive order Trump himself had signed trying to end it. The player Trump went to bat for only plays for the US because of the constitutional provision Trump tried to eliminate. But the fact that one phone call to the right person can override a rule that has been applied consistently for 64 years and produce a result that the governing body of European football calls "incomprehensible and unjustifiable" tells you something about how FIFA works that goes beyond this one red card. The institution that governs the world's most popular sport has been operating this way for decades. The Balogun decision is just the first time a lot of American fans are noticing it. So if this comes up in conversation, here's how to think about it. FIFA suspended Balogun's red card ban after Trump called Infantino, making it the first time since 1962 that a World Cup red card didn't carry a one-match suspension. Belgium called the decision astonishing. UEFA said it crossed a red line. But FIFA has been making decisions like this for decades. In 2015, the FBI arrested seven FIFA executives and charged them with accepting $150 million in bribes over 24 years. The 2022 World Cup was awarded to Qatar amid bribery allegations that FIFA's own investigator said were misrepresented in the organization's summary of his report. Over 6,500 migrant workers died during the decade of construction leading up to that tournament. FIFA generates $11 billion from the World Cup, governs itself with no external oversight, and controls a sport that national federations can't leave without abandoning the game entirely. The Balogun controversy isn't new behavior for FIFA. It's just the first time a lot of Americans are paying attention.

Stay informed, stay curious, and we'll see you tomorrow.