The World Cup needs its own Supreme Court
FIFA has rules. Now, it needs rule of law.
Welcome to The Closing Argument, our verdict on the news, plus everything The Argument published and appeared in this week.
The Verdict, by David Schleicher and David Fontana
The United States men’s soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup on Monday after a 4-1 loss to Belgium. Its final game was a series of humiliations (poor Matt Freese!) but the focus wasn’t on how the team played. Instead, it became about how President Donald Trump intervened with FIFA to ensure that one of the star U.S. players, Folarin Balogun, could play at all.
According to Article 66.4 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code, a red card (meaning a removal from the game) against a player in a game generates an automatic suspension of that player for their next match. Balogun was issued a red card in the U.S.’s Round of 32 game against Bosnia for his tackle of Tarik Muharemovic, a call that divided observers at the time. But the rules were clear: Balogun was not going to be allowed to play against Belgium.
Every rule has its exceptions, and Article 66.4 is no different. Article 27 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code authorizes FIFA “to fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure.” How are these two rules to be understood together? Should Balogun have been able to play?
There are many ways this could have been resolved. But, perhaps predictably given its history, FIFA handled it in the worst possible way.
President Trump had been building a relationship with FIFA President Gianni Infantino for about a decade. FIFA rented office space in Trump Tower and even presented Trump with a newly created “peace prize” last year to mollify him after he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump contacted Infantino to reinstate Balogun — and that is precisely what happened. There’s no way to know exactly why Balogun’s red card was overturned, but as Belgium properly noted, FIFA reinstated Balogun without sufficient explanation. When Belgium appealed that decision, FIFA rejected its appeal — again without much in the way of explanation.
This created the impression that the rules were being interpreted to benefit the U.S. because of Trump’s relationship with Infantino and because of the economic relationship between the U.S. and FIFA. (This World Cup is already the best attended and will likely be the most profitable in history.)
The collection of European soccer nations said that “the integrity of the game is at stake and the credibility of a competition is undermined” because of an “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision by FIFA. The head coach of Norway took time away from talking about his country’s incredible victory over Brazil to address the “bad, bad, bad, bad, bad decision that will hurt the World Cup.” Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter, a man not unfamiliar with accusations of corruption, stated “Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls.”
Even some American soccer fans and leaders were distressed. After the blowout to Belgium — and Balogun’s anonymous performance in that match — everyone must wonder whether the American side was affected by all of these negative attitudes. (Trump’s discussion of the suspension had serious Knicks Game 3 vibes.)
Belgium certainly stated that how it all went down fired them up even more. And, to the extent an organization that had its leaders repeatedly come under criminal investigation can actually lose even more credibility, FIFA came out looking very bad.
FIFA needs a soccer court.
FIFA’s executive body has all sorts of conflicts of interest interpreting its own rules: FIFA wants to generate money for the organization, increase viewership for games, and make its members happy. It can achieve these ends in the short run by favoring big and rich countries and star players (which it arguably did when it suspended a penalty for Cristiano Ronaldo coming into the tournament). But doing so undermines these same ends in the long run by reducing trust in the game.
Governments across the world utilize judges empowered with varying degrees of independence and required to write decisions explaining their interpretations of rules as a means of resolving disputes — private organizations can do the same.
Facebook — now Meta — has turned to its own private supreme court to resolve complicated issues related to its management of problematic speech on that website. Private companies trying to attract and retain customers want to ensure the reality and the perception that they have rules that they care about applying consistently. They are better able to achieve their corporate ends by taking their executives out of decisions like this and delegating these decisions to a body that has some independence and uses court-like procedures of impartiality and consistency with preannounced rules.
Court-like institutions can focus more on how the rules should be interpreted because — unlike FIFA President Infantino — they do not owe their position nor their influence to powerful external actors like Trump. If these court-like institutions are staffed with powerful and prominent legal and football minds, then their incentives will be to interpret the rules in an impartial manner to preserve the stellar reputations these figures bring to their roles.
Writing down the reasons for their interpretations of the rules is another way that private judge-like figures would ensure that they are following the rules and that people believe they are doing so.
Just so you have some idea of what we are suggesting, imagine if FIFA could send a question like the Balogun suspension to a body staffed by a combination of legal elites and football professionals. They would be appointed by FIFA, but, due to their reputations and some protections against being fired, would be substantially independent of it. And they would be required to hear appeals quickly and explain their decisions in writing.
Imagine a body with figures like Louise Arbour, Lilian Thuram, Michelle Akers, Chile Eboe-Osuji, Mary Robinson, or Jürgen Klopp. Arguments to the body would be made in public (and on TV — imagine the ratings!). And these august figures — not Gianni Infantino, with all of his conflicts of interest — would issue their decisions and explain their reasoning.
A FIFA Court could be a reliable and trusted way of addressing some of the biggest problems in the game, like variability in interpretations of the rules by game referees and gamesmanship by teams. This World Cup has featured referees who have largely swallowed their whistles in favor of letting the game flow — something that fans have largely liked. But teams have responded, leading to travesties like the bizarre tactics used by Paraguay to try to stay close to the brilliantly talented France team. (Notably, France appealed a yellow card that followed a blatant flop in that game, though FIFA rejected the appeal.)
FIFA already understands the logic of this idea. It already has institutions that resemble courts, but it does not take these institutions seriously. The FIFA statutes create “judicial bodies” that are supposed to be independent. FIFA’s appellate body is chaired by Neil Eggleston, a former White House Counsel under President Obama, and has a former Minister for Justice of Sweden as a deputy (Eggleston was not involved in Belgium’s appeal of FIFA’s decision).
Infantino insisted that he did not control Balogun’s reinstatement. But, without any opinion explaining why FIFA thought that Balogun’s reinstatement was consistent with its own rules, this is hard to believe — particularly after witnessing decades of FIFA’s corruption in other matters.
Without having judges stand behind their own opinions and on their own reputations, a court-like body does not provide much legitimacy. And without having a clear process, there are many reasons to question whether FIFA has followed its own rules.
The World Cup is over for the United States. But the rest of this year’s tournament is still to be played, and there are many World Cup tournaments to come. Until and unless FIFA finds a better way to handle controversial matters, fans will always wonder about every controversial call — whether it was about the best way to interpret soccer’s rules or about the most powerful person who cares about those rules.
Top stories this week, by Maibritt Henkel
As we grow, I want to make sure you see everything we’re doing without flooding your inbox with dozens of emails. But for the real libs, you can get every post as it drops by opting into The Mag here.
Eli Richman kicked off the week with an exposé of DayQuil and other combination drugs. Turns out most over-the-counter cold and flu products offered at your local CVS are actually just Tylenol plus a bunch of ingredients that don’t really do anything. Read the full piece to understand why on earth you’re paying $15 for 16 cents’ worth of actual medicine and also why they might kill you.
On Tuesday, Jerusalem Demsas offered her take on the Graham Platner debacle playing out in Maine. She writes that the entire situation reeks of poor judgment — not only on the part of Platner himself, but on the part of everyone who defended him despite evidence of his pathologically bad decision-making.
From Kelsey Piper, we got an article making sense of the absurd Francesca Gino controversy. In May 2025, the Harvard Business School behavioral scientist was fired for blatant research misconduct. Rather than come clean, Gino doubled down, soliciting support from, among others, several chatbots. Surprise, surprise, when you feed AI only your side of the story, chances are it will find you innocent.
🌟Abundance Wins of the Week🌟
North Carolina will remove mandatory minimum parking requirements in most counties, thanks to a new housing bill intended to lower construction costs and rents.
A tribe in Colorado successfully set into motion a utility-scale solar project that will generate 270 megawatts of electricity at full capacity.
The “Abundant and Affordable Homes Near Transit Act,” also known as SB 79, has now taken effect in California, with zoning changes estimated to result in 1 million new units across the state.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law at midnight on Saturday morning after the president refused to either sign or veto it. The hope is that the bill will expand national housing supply by reducing regulatory barriers and incentivizing local governments to pass YIMBY-aligned zoning reforms.
Worth watching...
It’s no secret that Matthew Yglesias and Jerusalem really like cities. So did Jane Jacobs, author of the groundbreaking 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. And yet, many of Jacobs’ policy prescriptions haven’t aged well — for instance, her optimism about giving more power to localities. Tune into this week’s podcast for the full book review.
Was Jane Jacobs the first NIMBY?
There are a lot of bad vibes about cities: They’re crime-ridden, full of degenerates, dirty, crowded, and ugly. Real America is rural, or, maybe, suburban.
On Wednesday, in anticipation of Graham Platner ditching his bid for Senate, Lakshya Jain and VoteHub’s Zachary Donnini got on a Substack live conversation to discuss what happens next. As things in Maine evolve quickly, their conversation offers a helpful overview of the political situation: Who are the Democrats most likely to replace Platner? And what would each potential candidate indicate about the direction of the party?
What’s News with The Argument
The Argument recommends, by Maibritt Henkel
An eclectic assortment of culture recs from the team this week:
Kobe Yank-Jacobs suggests listening to this episode of Alex Honnold’s podcast, Climbing Gold. He finds that rock climbers offer a fascinating insight into the “funny tangle of striving and non-doing, and learning when to push and when to delight.” (Someone clearly spent their Independence Day weekend back in California.)
Alternatively, if you want get ready for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey hitting theaters later this week, you can take Angela Tracy’s advice and listen to these four episodes of The Rest is History about Greek mythology.
For a change, Milan Singh’s recommendation is neither short-form vertical video nor the music of a not-to-be-named rapper from Toronto. Instead, he encourages you to read Rose Horowitch’s excellent piece in The Atlantic on the end of reading.
Eli Richman braved the new horror TV show, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, the story of a bride-to-be juggling her fiance’s creepy family and a marriage curse. He seems to have enjoyed it, but has “no idea what exactly the creator is trying to say about the institution of marriage.” (Probably nothing good.)
Jerusalem Demsas just got back from her trip to the U.K., and while she absolutely did not enjoy her experience eating English tea sandwiches (“worse than average American pool sandwiches”) she did find a first edition copy of A.S. Byatt’s Possession for 6.99 pounds. It’s one of her all-time favorites: “part mystery, part romance, part history, part investigation of English romanticism.”
I finally finished Kiran Desai’s latest novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, which was beautiful and funny and downright Tolstoyan in its incredible cast of places and people. It is a story about two young people learning the hard lesson that no love story ever gets to be just about love when there are needy parents to appease, visas to apply for, and careers to be had.
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Don't hate the court idea, but courts are naturally slow as sides need to gather evidence, defend them, appeal, etc. There were 4 days to overturn the Balogun decision. I can't really see a way to do it in such a fast way.
Recently in F1 one of the teams (Alpine) lobbied against a 10 second penalty decision on account of a faulty measurement, it won, but still took a week to get there. Gasly's podium was reinstated but fans and other teams were upset even with the new evidence and the court-like process explaining their decision.
Even a "bans are suspended until the court can review it" policy would likely be gamed by member FAs.