"FIFA have failed in their duty towards the game." That's a former top-level referee talking, not a disgruntled fan on a message board. And he's not wrong.
The World Cup's two most controversial red-card decisions are now sitting side by side under a very uncomfortable light. England's Jarell Quansah was sent off for a studs-up sliding challenge in the last 16 against Mexico, reviewed by VAR, confirmed as serious foul play, and handed a two-match ban that England's FA says it can't even appeal. Folarin Balogun, sent off for a near-identical challenge in the United States' round-of-32 win over Bosnia, received a one-match ban — and then had that suspended entirely under Article 27 of FIFA's disciplinary code. He played on.
What Article 27 actually means — and why FIFA won't say
That's where this gets murky. FIFA has offered no public explanation of why Article 27 applied to Balogun's case. Did they think the referee got it wrong? Was it a misapplication of the laws? Nobody knows, because FIFA hasn't said. Belgium tried to challenge Balogun's eligibility before their round-of-16 match against the US and got nowhere. They still lost the match. FIFA still said nothing.
Former FIFA referee Jonas Eriksson, who worked at that level for 16 years, cut to the heart of it: if the two challenges were roughly equal in intensity and aggression — and by most accounts, they were — then the sanctions should be too. "What everyone wants from referees is the correct decisions, yes, but more important always is consistency," Eriksson told Reuters. "That's what you expect. And this is not the case when it comes to Quansah and Balogun."
It's a straightforward argument. Player A and Player B commit the same foul. Player A misses two games. Player B misses none. No explanation provided. That's not a judicial process — that's a coin flip with a press release attached.
The Trump factor FIFA can't shake
Then there's the context that FIFA desperately wants you to ignore. U.S. President Donald Trump personally contacted FIFA President Gianni Infantino to push for a review of Balogun's case. FIFA insists that conversation had no bearing on the outcome. Perhaps. But the sequence of events — presidential call, then ban suspended — is not a good look for a governing body already operating with minimal public trust.
Keith Hackett, a former international referee, didn't mince words on social media: "FIFA allowed outside interference by the president." Whether that interference changed the decision is unknowable. That it happened at all is damaging enough.
From a betting perspective, the inconsistency matters beyond the optics. Suspension decisions affect team selection, and if those decisions are being made through an opaque process that may or may not bend to political pressure, then any pre-match squad analysis during the knockouts becomes a guessing game. England's odds took a real hit without Quansah available. The US faced no such consequence.
Eriksson summed up the situation as cleanly as anyone: "It's just for you and me and for everybody else to guess. But with that in mind, the red card for Quansah and the suspension is for me, just, it's a mystery."
FIFA sets the laws. FIFA enforces the laws. FIFA won't explain the laws. That's not governance — that's a black box with a badge on it.
