Writer argues Fifa gutless for claiming impossible to host without Trump, noting Russia honoured visa rules in 2018 without incident.
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When you back down to a bully – as Fifa has just done before Donald Trump by allowing him to break their rules for the World Cup tournament – you guarantee someone else will get the message and something similar will happen in the future.
A grovelling Fifa chief, Gianni Infantino, says it would have been “impossible” to organise the event without the US president.
That’s presumably why the Americans were allowed to bar people from all over the world – especially those accredited by Fifa – from entering the country.
The gutless Infantino described as “unfortunate” that a top African referee, Omar Artan, was one of those barred.
The world football body supposedly specifically prohibits a host country from barring anyone from attending.
That’s a condition Trump agreed to in his first term, when the hosting contracts were signed.
When Russia hosted the tournament in 2018, Moscow had to swallow its security and ideological pride and allow in people who would not normally have been given visas.
Funnily enough, the world didn’t end for them because they did that.
Once you let politics and personality take precedence over pure sport, you have let the genie out of the bottle – one which will be impossible to put back inside.
