TRUMP PHONED FIFA AND THE RED CARD DISAPPEARED

Trump phoned FIFA, a World Cup red card vanished, and the USA lost 4-1 anyway.
FIFA corruption, VAR conspiracies, and Folarin Balogun's very convenient reprieve.

The 2026 World Cup has gone full pantomime. The President rang Gianni Infantino, FIFA's disciplinary committee discovered red cards are optional if you ask nicely, and Belgium's appeal was rejected on the grounds that Belgium wasn't involved. 

Meanwhile the VAR booths keep filling with fans of whoever needs to win, and Jack and Adam arrive at the only sensible fix: sack every referee and let the robots do it. 

Recorded before England drew Argentina in the semi, so the theory gets tested on Wednesday.

00:00 FIFA is corrupt, apparently
01:00 The very independent review
03:00 VAR and the Egypt problem
05:00 Referees are only human
08:50 Just make the referees AI
09:45 England's penalty destiny

#WorldCup2026 #FIFA #BritishComedy

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Transcript

0:00

Hot news this week, Adam. It turns out that FIFA is corrupt Oh, really? Uh, I didn't know. I- Mind's blown … I've thought they were really by the book and really sound. No, turns out that, you know, they're, they're corrupt. They've got, Sepp Blatter used to run it, and when he did it was, you know, perfectly upstanding, uh, organization, uniting the world under kicking around that, you know, wind bag. And, uh, now it's- And making lots of money at the same time. Y- yeah, exactly. Everyone's a winner, but now it's totally corrupt. So D- Donald Trump last week, uh, phoned the head of FIFA and got a red card overturned for one of the American players, and his reasoning was that if you're gonna have a game, it's not fair to not have all your best players, right? Which I, I guess- Even if there's been a red card. Yeah … y- I mean, the, it, it isn't fair to, like, not, not have all your best players, but if one of those players has done something drastically wrong, then maybe he doesn't have his right to be there. He's like, "You know what, everyone? I, I w- I was a great athlete. I was a great athlete." And, uh, not having your best players is like… Anyway, so yeah, he, he phoned FIFA up, got an investigation by an independent board, and they overturned- How independent was this? I mean, super independent. Yeah, he, he even said- Was it Baron Blat- Yeah … and, and Baron Trump? He even said, like, an independent adjudication, you know, just to make it all super official. And yeah, so, so the red card was overturned. The player was, who is USA's best player, was then allowed to play in the very next game against Belgium. For those of you who don't know, you should get a two-match ban for this, right? A one or two-match ban. And then the USA proceeded to get pumped 4-1 by Belgium, which was quite funny. And then- So all of this was literally for nothing. Um- It just made everyone hate the US team and think that they're just will cheat their way to winning stuff. And, and it's, it's funny because Trump made a statement before the USA lost the game, and he said, "Well, if they lose to Belgium, I'll just say it was rigged like I did the 2020 election," which I thought was- That's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. So in other news, for England it's good because we also had a player sent off against Mexico. One of our, our right back, he went over the ball, Jarrad Quansah, and studded into the, you know, the Mexican player's leg. It's definitely a red card, I would say, but it was still a little bit unfortunate. The ball sort of lifted his leg up. Uh, so presumably- I'm sure it did … Keir Starmer, yeah, Keir Starmer called FIFA and, um, he's got a two-match ban, so. Oh, right, okay. So, right. Well, maybe Keir Starmer has less influence or maybe less footballing knowledge than Donald Trump, and so FIFA just couldn't take him seriously in the same way. Yeah. I think it's a running joke of, like, I don't think he actually did call. I think it's just a joke that he phoned them up and they were like,"Yeah, two-match ban now." Yeah. Just 'cause he has that sort of effect on people, you know. Phones up to get a better deal and ends up paying more. Yeah, which is exactly what's happened in, with a lot of things in the UK. It's like the worst possible outcome when they try to fix something is always what happens- Right … for some reason. Yeah, and it's not the only farce of this World Cup. So FIFA have also, with VAR, got themselves in serious trouble with the Egypt-Argentina game. All the Egyptian players are, are coming out saying that it was actually fixed against them and put in favor of Argentina. So, uh, Egypt were two-nil up in this game. They also had a goal disallowed. Now, there was a foul earlier in the play, but it wasn't an obvious error. VAR brought it back after about 70 or 80 seconds and was like, "Oh no, that's not a goal," and Argentina ended up winning it three-two. And it was similar in the game before that- Hmm against Cape Verde. So th- there's definitely this thing where UEFA, for example, which is the European Football Association, they have all the power because all of the best teams come from there. So FIFA really don't want European teams to win the World Cup. They either want it to be someone brand new, like Switzerland, who are still in there, which is the home of FIFA. Hmm. Or they want it to be, an African nation would be brilliant, right? Or Argentina, like, and Argentina won it last night, last time. Morocco went out last night. So now it's kind of the only teams left that they want is Argentina, Norway, um, or, or Switzerland. Uh- Hmm … because if, if a, if a European team keeps winning it, it's like FIFA, what are they for, right? UEFA could co- come in, take over it with all their money, all their might, start a new World Cup, invite other nations to it, and FIFA would be, you know, blo- dead in the water, basically. Yeah. I mean, that's interesting. You'd think for that to happen, though, at some point FIFA must have sat down with the referees or the officials and said, "All right, look, guys, we, uh, we don't want these people winning. We need people from these areas winning instead." And c- 'cause it must take some organization if they were doing something like that. Or, or do, are our referees just naturally affiliated with FIFA and go, "All right, yeah, be more lenient with this team than another"? Yeah. I mean, it, it's one of those things where it's difficult to judge on either side because some- you could call a decision a certain way or, or another way. It's, like, always an interpretation of the rules. But they do things like the England-Mexico game, all of the video assistant referees were from South America, for example. That doesn't sound too… Yeah. Right? So and then last night's game, which it obviously didn't impact things, France won, but last night's game, all of the video assistant referees are from Argentina. That's insane. That's… Ca- 'cause to put it in a- another context, it's like you've got like Por- Portsmouth versus Middlesbrough or something like that, but like all the VAR is done by Middlesbrough fans. You know, it just, th- there's gonna be some, some level of messing about with that, but it's gonna work- Yeah in your team's favor. And on the other side even, like imagine if it was a load of Geordies- Uh, yeah… as the V- video assistant referees. It's 'cause football fans are irrational. I, I know 'cause I am one. I'm a fanatical football fan for some reason, which is weird 'cause, you know, I consider myself reasonably intelligent, but I'm a full-on lout football fan. And you just have teams that you don't like for no… Well, it could be like you played them seven years ago, and one of their players was a bit of a dick when he celebrated a goal, and that was it, right? You're like, "Right, fuck them." That's it. That's it, right? Never watching Millwall again. Y- yeah, right? And presumably that's human nature. So you imagine if you're a referee and you've gone to certain grounds, certain places, whatever, certain fans have just given you shit like, "The referee's a wanker," whatever, you know, like all of that kind of stuff. Um, yeah, you- you, surely you're gonna, as a human, you're just gonna keep some of that in, right? So they say they're totally impartial and like, you know, but they can't be really, and they referee so many games, so many things. There's gonna be a time where they have a problem with one place or country. We even, as humans, we're irrational like this, right? You'll even have countries in the world that you're like,"Ah, I don't like that country." You've probably never been there, and you don't really know why, and it's just like- You've never met a person from that place. You don't know- Yeah … any of it. And you're just like- You just… Yeah, or maybe one, or you saw one person you met, whatever, right? And it g- gave you a bad impression and all of that kind of stuff. So you're like, "Right, fuck that whole nation of people. Like forget them. They're, they're on my not, not liking list basically." And these referees must be the same. They're not superhuman, where they can't possibly collect these biases and things that you go through life. And you can go, "No, no, that's just a bias or whatever." But if sh- I mean, you got 10 different voices going, like you don't know what the fuck makes your biases work like that. So it's really tricky, and I get it. It is tricky. Yeah. Um, and I mean, the same thing will happen sometimes with judges and all kinds of things, or just not like the look of someone 'cause of something that happened previously i- in their life or something. And it, it probably is in all, all different walks of life where people have slight biases. Um, but I mean, uh, do you think there's any way to, to fix this in FIFA? What… Is, is there any solution to it, or is it just something that's always gonna be part of the game? No, there's one. AI AI can solve all of this. Just get rid of the referees and make AI referees. Like, yeah, yesterday I got served in a restaurant in Vietnam by a robot, and it's the best service I've ever had. It was awesome. Is that right? And this little robot came out with the drinks and turned around and got the drinks off it and turned around and went off. So I think they just need like a, you know, a referee bot I mean, I guess eventually you could just have AI players as well And then program it so England always win and that'll be fantastic. Then have AI fans and everything else. Man, you don't, don't need to bother with football anymore. Takes way too much of your time. You can just forget about it. Yeah. Let AI handle it instead, just outsource it. I have to say, I'm looking forward to the World Cup ending 'cause I- I've probably gained about six kilos in fat and lost about four kilos in muscle over the time of the tournament, so it's- Sounds like it's been a wild ride. Yeah. I'm just really hoping that England finally win it and bring it home. Yeah. I mean- And then, and then I can be done for the rest of my life then. I don't care if we ever win anything ever again. That'll be it for me. Just win it once. But I I think- Just once … unfortunately either this upcoming game or for one after, it'll be England out on penalties again, 'cause that's typically what, what happens. Yeah. That's been the case in most World Cups that I've followed. Yeah. And most of my childhood memories as well of like first, uh, like enjoying watching England play and then, oh, who was it? Gareth Southgate. Just, yeah, sends the ball flying over the crossbar into the crowd and we're out on penalties again. Yeah, crushing, cr- the crushing defeat after hope is raised. It's, it's one of those things. Yeah, Southgate, I, I remember crying at that in 1996. He hit it down the middle. But we've got a German manager this time, right? So that, that makes a big difference. And also, the universe is messed up because the Germans lost on penalties at, at the World Cup this year and went home. So there's something- Oh, right, okay … strange going on. Germany are now the new England. We're maybe the new Germany and it's all gonna work out. I'm not… You know, it'll be fine. Um, yeah. Good. Anyway. Go- good luck with it. And on that note- I hope it goes well. Ladies and gentlemen… Well, I'm sure we'll have more stuff about FIFA next week because there's a lot of other things to, to discuss that are happening and, and, you know, it's a car crash, so there's some other things we can go into. But if you wanna see that, give us a like, subscribe, follow, and we will see you in the next one. Adam, thank you, my friend. Yeah. See you next time.