Match-fixing at the World Cup

Donald Trump has had a very busy week. Not only was he busy attacking Iran again, but he was telling FIFA to remove a red card penalty imposed on a USA player. He got away with it, which means he didn’t have to send in the Marines, or bomb the remaining World Cup matches. The USA team didn’t respond though, and were knocked out of the World Cup by Belgium, which beat them 4-1. And that goal too was not scored by Folarin Balogun, the player for whom Trump intervened.

It was a courageous intervention, for I don’t know how his base would react to his trying to do something for a black man.  But is it the new normal? Was Trump trying to appeal to the soccer mom demographic? Will he intervene in other sports? The USA was also co-host, in 2024, of the Cricket T20 World Cup. Pakistan went down to the USA, but since everyone else beat the USA, it was out on its ear.

However, Belgium had better watch out. I mean, its capital, Brussels, is also the headquarters of NATO, as well as of the EU. It’s thus the nearest Europe has to a capital. It’s also a relatively small country, and could become the target of Trump’s wrath. What if he wants to take it over, the way he has announced a desire to take over Greenland or Canada?

Canada was also a co-host, as was Mexico. One country that Trump wants to absorb, and one he wishes would disappear. Or pay for the wall he wants to build with it. Well, he can perhaps take some comfort in their also being knocked out.

I wonder if he is waiting for the Cricket World Cup to be jointly hosted by the USA. Considering the sort of insider trading he has done with the Iran War, I would hate what would happen if he was introduced to the Mumbai Match-fixers. I suspect that there’s little spot betting in football, if any. They just stick to the results. Imagine what would happen if a batsmen scored a four on the fifth ball instead of the fourth of an over. Afghanistan would probably get invaded again.

The World Cup has seen Brazil get knocked out of the tournament, which means that only France, Argentina, England and Spain remained of the former champions. These are also the semifinalists, which means that there won’t be a new Champion.

Another eliminated team, Egypt, returned to a hero’s welcome, which made me wonder what would have happened had they won. They would probably have been met by a stony silence, for one event tells me that Egypt loves a loser.

After the Six-Day War in 1967 against Israel, in which Egypt got a pasting on which Israel still bases its military reputation, Gamal Abdel Nasser resigned because of the terrible loss the country had suffered, symbolized by the Israeli occupation of the Sinai. However, there was an outburst of popular protests against the decision, with the public demanding he take back the decision.

Imagine if, in the dark days following the surrender at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka on 16 December 1971, after Yahya Khan had resigned, there had been street protests after the resignation, and demands that he withdraw his resignation. Well, Yahya’s eyebrows did not exercise enough fascination on what remained of the country to persuade people out on the streets.

Another example has been the chopping of Shan Masood as captain of the Test team. Now that was someone who knew how to lose royally, and his attempt to have the Test captaincy for life would have gone down better in Egypt. It’s worth noting that if he had been retained, and Harry Brook had been appointed England captain, both skippers would have belonged to Yorkshire, of which Shan is still captain. But for how long? Brook was the guy whose triple century had ensured Shan became the only captain in Test history to post over 500 and lose by an innings. It’s a bit of an anomaly, Brook becoming England captain before captaining his county, but one presumes Shan Masood has got someone like trump on his side, The PCB would probably have obliged, but his losing four consecutive Tests against Bangladesh can’t have helped.

It should give us pause that he had to be replaced by someone who was sacked as captain because he was losing matches. That’s perhaps the only reason.