Infraction

Who is this Taylor Swift? Is he a footballer? Perhaps he will be the next recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize? But who should be the FIFA Laureates in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Economic Sciences? And why?

Without having to do anything to avoid it, I have managed not to see a single moment of the World Cup, and my life is quite complete. But I should still like to welcome the United States to the club of true footballing countries, defined by their shamelessly corrupt relationship with FIFA. Donald Trump admits that he does not know what a red card is, yet he can still have the ban attached to one overturned, and he is being backed by people who thought that Belgium was trying to play against an American team of only 10 men.

Folarin Balogun's Nigerian parents were happily settled in London when airline staff would not allow them to fly back from a trip to New York because his mother was seven months pregnant. Only for that reason was he born in the United States, returning at two months old to the United Kingdom, where he grew up, giving him his unmistakable Multicultural London English accent. All the way up to under-21 level, as recently as 2022, he played for England. Specifically, of course, he played "soccer". Not exactly Trump's base, is he?