Donald Trump talks about intervening in FIFA’s internal affairs with the same ease he talks about intervening in the affairs of other nations.
Let’s go through his remarks one by one and examine what they actually reveal. Perhaps this will help not only Trump’s supporters, but also conspiracy theorists, anti-capitalist activists, and anyone who believes that rules exist only for other people.
“Yes, I asked for a review.”
Trump openly admits that he requested a review of the referee’s decision. What he leaves out is the crucial question: in what capacity? Not as an ordinary spectator or a football analyst, but as the President of the United States and the leader of the tournament’s host nation. During an ongoing competition, such an intervention can reasonably be interpreted as political pressure on FIFA officials.
“I talked to a man who is highly respected.”
In Trump’s world, respectability follows a simple rule: if someone agrees with him, they are highly respected. If they disagree, they quickly become questionable.
“I didn’t think it was a foul.”
The problem is not that Trump has an opinion. The problem is that he expresses opinions with complete certainty before understanding the rules. It is a pattern that extends far beyond football: conclusions first, facts later.
“That was not a guy punching somebody in the face.”
Based on this statement, Trump’s threshold for punishing a player seems to come from American football or ice hockey. If nobody threw a punch, then perhaps, in his view, no serious foul occurred.
“I didn’t tell him what to do… but they made the right decision because, number one, it wasn’t a foul.”
This may be the most revealing sentence of all. Trump insists he did not influence anyone, yet immediately explains why the decision matched exactly what he wanted. The same confidence with which he appoints himself an expert referee is the confidence he brings to the world’s most complex political issues.
“The referee call was terrible… who is a little bit suspect, if you check his past… very suspect.”
Here we see one of Trump’s recurring patterns. Officials who validate his views are respectable. Officials who enforce the rules against his preferences suddenly become “suspect.” Their past deserves scrutiny, their reputation becomes fair game, and attention shifts away from the facts toward discrediting the person who disagreed.
“They talk about the red card like it’s fine. Red card. I didn’t know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, you’ve got to be kidding.”
Trump openly admits he did not know the rules. Rather than treating that as a reason for caution, he mocks the rule itself. If reality contradicts his instincts, then, in his view, it is reality that must be wrong.
“When you see it in fast motion it will look like two guys colliding, which is really what happened.”
At this point, satire almost writes itself. By that logic, any foul can disappear if you play the footage fast enough. One could just as easily argue that if you rewind the video, the players never touched each other at all. When facts become inconvenient, changing the angle of observation becomes a substitute for changing one’s mind.
“He is our best player… and they gave him a red card… That means he can’t play in the next game. That’s very unfair. It’s one thing to penalize somebody for the game, but how do you penalize them for a game that hasn’t been played yet?”
This is where Trump’s remarks reveal something much deeper than frustration with football regulations. They expose a profound discomfort with the very idea of accountability. Suspensions exist precisely because actions have consequences beyond the immediate moment.
Ultimately, this seems to reflect a broader political philosophy: do whatever you want, while someone else pays the long-term price. A slap on the wrist for the decision-maker; the real cost borne by everyone else.
