UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin didn’t attend Sunday night’s FIFA World Cup final between Argentina and Spain in protest at the international football governing body’s handling of the Folarin Balogun red card.
Ceferin, according to Telegraph Sport, was quite upset when US player Balogun’s red card, incurred at the Round of 32 game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, was suspended for their next game against Belgium in the pre-quarterfinals after President Donald Trump called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to see to it.
There were also other issues. Ceferin was upset that Africa’s top referee Omar Artan was denied entry to the US, for his country Somalia was on their travel ban list. The fact that the Iranian football team wasn’t treated the right way also didn’t sit well with the UEFA president, also the vice-president of FIFA from the European region. The US-Iran war should not have had any bearing on the event, as per him.
Ceferin spoke against expensive tickets for the matches in the lead-up to the tournament. The UEFA was also against a couple of rules introduced for the tournament. For example, players covering their mouths during confrontations will be given a red card. Also, players leaving the field in protest at a decision will be meted out the same treatment.
But the Balogun episode was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. A UEFA release hours later said: “Yesterday’s decision to suspend for a probationary period of a year the implementation of the one-match automatic suspension following the red card issued to the player Folarin Balogun crossed a red line.
“Football, like any other sport, relies on rules, which are the basis for fair, honest and transparent competition. Sometimes rules are open to interpretation. In this case, not. A minimum automatic suspension of one match following a red card is not a discretionary option and does not require the decision of a competent body to be enacted. It is a principle embedded in regulations, which cannot be made subject to exceptions, let alone in the middle of a tournament where several other players have been in the same situation and regularly served their suspension.
“When the certainty of rules is no longer guaranteed by its guardians, the integrity of the game is at stake, and the credibility of a competition is undermined. Equally, such a decision creates a precedent in the ongoing tournament, where similar situations will now require equal treatment, to the detriment of the competition.
“Football is the most loved sport in the world because it is a beautiful game and is trusted because it is played everywhere with the same laws. A tournament is never a pure standalone, and, if the tournament in question is the World Cup, it has the power to drive positive or negative consequences on the game as a whole. We express our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision.”
Ceferin’s decision not to attend the final is unprecedented. A full scale war between the two leading bodies of the footballing world is in the offing for sure.
