Philosopher Gebauer on Trump at the World Cup: “This president is a cheat”

IOn the night from Tuesday to Wednesday German local time, the host USA team clearly lost the game for a place in the quarter-finals against Belgium with a score of 1:4. It didn’t help that striker Folarin Balogun was in the starting line-up – even though he had received a red card in the previous game. This is always followed by at least one game suspension. Unless the president of the home country puts in a good word with the FIFA president. That’s how it happened, FIFA put Balogun’s ban on probation after a call from Donald Trump to Gianni Infantino – and probably only the clear victory of the Belgians saved FIFA from the football world finally losing faith in this tournament. The philosopher and sports sociologist Gunter Gebauer knows why this form of arbitrariness is particularly painful: football was one of the last spheres where the truth really counted.