How a box-office World Cup descended into fury and farce to leave Fifa with a huge problem

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The Independent

8 July 2026

Lionel Messi

was lifted into the air, and

the Egyptian players sank to the ground

, it was a scene beyond most cinema.

Or, as they say here, prime-time TV. This was box office. Any director would have loved all of this, right up to the unique soundtrack of the

Argentina

fans.

open image in gallery

Lionel Messi was hoisted aloft by his

teammates after the win over

Egypt

(Reuters)

There have been so many similar moments at this

World Cup

, where the drama has been sensational and driven all emotions to extremes. Just look at how Messi and his manager were in tears.

“I can’t look at you,”

Lionel Scaloni

said. “I’m sorry, I’m too emotional, what a group of players, my brother, that’s all… I can’t.”

Argentina's coach and captain shared an emotional embrace after their

win over

(AP)

If Messi’s weeping was a touch more understandable given that this comeback over

carried all the weight of potentially being his last

game, Scaloni is the defending World Cup-winning manager.

And this was a mere last-16 tie.

It’s far from the first time that

have felt the most emotionally intense team at a

, but an exhilarating difference now is how this is infecting everyone else.

Just at what England have gone through

. Basically, no side has serenely come through without some form of chaos, in the way West Germany did in 1990 or Brazil in 2002.

England’s emotional win over Mexico was emblematic of the tournament more widely (PA Wire)

Colombia-Switzerland actually

stood out because it was so staid

, like something from 20 years ago. Indeed, in Germany 2006, the number of goals produced by the last 16 was a mere 15 - the lowest this millennium - compared to 23 now

In the modern

, players have been released by the tactical constraints of the club game, while simultaneously being pushed by the unique glory of what the competition means. What has become so pronounced is how every one of these games look and feel like the national events that they actually are, the open play of the games more often fitting the scale of emotion.

We may be in a glory era in that sense, at least in terms of the actual football.

So much of it has been transcendent. With most

rounds of the last 30 years, after all, you’d want just one game

like the epic of Mexico 2-3 England

. With this, another came along with

two days later.

Argentina and

delivered another glorious

moment (Reuters)

The last 16 has of course provoked other emotions, too,

not least revulsion at the Folarin Balogun case

. It is actually a pity that is how the story has already become known, because the player had nothing to do with the shameless political interference.

The controversy has nevertheless directly influenced a more troubling feeling, that should be on the fringes but is obviously growing.

Egypt coach Hossam Hassan wasn’t afraid to articulate it, if in more extreme terms than most.

Furious at so many of the decisions in his side’s otherwise defiant defeat to

Hassan said they “suffered an injustice”.

Egypt boss Hossam Hassan was left furious after defeat to

(Getty)

“It’s all about money,” Hassan claimed. “They want Messi to stay in the tournament. In football, many things happen off the pitch because of interests. What happened was unfair.

deserved to qualify. We were the better team.

“We have been treated unfairly today. We have suffered injustice. It is my own way of speaking up and standing up. I am not going to watch another match in this tournament.”

He is not the only one thinking along those lines, since figures at major European clubs were telling

that many such elements of the games were off-putting.

Mostafa Ziko’s disallowed goal was so unsettling

because the initial foul was innocuous and so far away, but also because the decision went against the spirit in which this tournament has been refereed. It has been light touch in almost everything else.

Egypt were left frustrated by the officials in defeat to

(PA)

And here, in a game involving the box-office world champions and maybe the greatest ever player, it went another way.

The highly likely reality is of course that it’s just normal and inevitable refereeing inconsistency, especially when you have officials interpreting moments through the varying lens of multiple different countries’ norms, and the way the decision-making has become so erratic.

That’s just what happens.

The specific problem that

Fifa

now have, however, is

that the Donald Trump crisis changes perceptions.

The Donald Trump farrago leaves Fifa with a major problem (Getty)

Ultimately, a lot of people are now wondering something that

Gianni Infantino

should be worried about: if the Trump farrago happened, what else could?

Any borderline decisions that go a certain way, especially to the big names, are going to also be viewed through a certain perspective; as if this is like cinema in another way: scripted.

It should be stressed the Independent is absolutely not saying that is the case and believes the idea absurd, but the fact that many others don't can be seen in so many social media memes about Wrestlemania.

And, again, if that sort of thinking should usually be given no credence, it becomes an active problem when it is actually growing, to the point it can’t just be ignored.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has faced calls to resign during the

The Premier League has faced precisely the same problem

, with all of these banners about “corruption”, and that has of course directly coincided with the rise of “lawfare”.

In Fifa’s case, this is what happens when the line of sporting integrity is crossed.

They are now facing a legitimacy crisis, something all the more poignant when the actual football – and emotion – has afforded such an uplifting authenticity to this

The grand irony is that the tournament is actually now financially conditioned, if not “fixed”, in another sense.

France are one of six European teams in the last eight (Reuters)

Look at the make-up of the quarter-finals.

The majority of teams, at six, are among the wealthiest western European sides: France, Spain, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway.

The debate in the humiliated USA about their outlier “pay to play” model - where fees for children to play football are so high - is all the more ironic when these European nations maximise their wealth in another way.

It’s been said on these pages many times, but they’ve essentially industrialised coaching.

The US has failed to do anything close

, despite appearing to view all talent production through the prism of short-term capital.

Morocco are meanwhile a new force because their national game has become a state mega project, akin to Viktor Orban with Hungary.

Morocco are the tournament’s great outlier (Reuters)

That direction of travel also brings some of this full circle.

One of the genuinely good things that Fifa do is redistribute the wealth of the game, amid an Arsene Wenger-led

grand campaign to improve standards across the world

, only for that to also be a political vote-returning mechanism that also causes such problems.

The dynamic is like something out of classic political satire, which makes it just as well the

is so cinematic.

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