You don’t need bribes to fix a World Cup, only status

Open this photo in gallery:

After a couple of big, game-turning decisions have gone against underdogs in this World Cup, people have begun to wonder – is this whole thing fixed?

Yes, obviously.

When the leader of one of the host nations phones up the guy in charge of the whole sport to complain about a decision that went against his team, and that decision is reversed, it’s more than fishy. It’s what we legal experts who have watched all 25 seasons of Law & Order call a clear chain of evidence.

The word’s out – this thing is meant to go one way. You don’t think that message doesn’t float downstream?

It doesn’t require a bunch of suits in a blue-lit room carpeted with noise dampeners working it out off the record. Everyone gets how this is supposed to go.

No on- or off-field official is going to win the match for anybody. That would be too obvious.

But where a helping hand can be extended, it will be. Where a perceived wrong can be righted, that will happen, too.

Cathal Kelly: America rigs the World Cup, then bows out as a laughingstock

Egypt is angry about a call that went against them in their Round of 16 match against Argentina. An Egyptian clipped an Argentinean in the Egyptian end of the field. As a result, Egypt won the ball. It then moved swiftly down up to the other end of the field, where Egypt scored.

A few issues here. It was a foul, but uncalled in the moment. Egypt was up 1-0 and cruising, so did they really need that second goal? (Ed note: They really did.) The tournament’s biggest star was about to be sent packing, probably for good.

The French referee would not have been thinking about that as the game was happening. Too much going on. But once play is paused, it is natural that one begin to consider one’s own situation.

The villain here isn’t the ref. It’s the Video Assistant Referee system. I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts the lead official saw the foul as it happened, but chose to ignore it. If you can’t defend a ball coming back a hundred yards at you, then that’s your own fault. That’s a reasonable, blanket sporting proposition, whatever the rules say.

But now you’ve stopped the game and got the referee planted in front of a monitor, while 75,000 people bore their eyes into his back. He’s no longer making instinctive, impartial decisions. He’s thinking about Messi, his bosses, ad dollars, how much he likes refereeing at the World Cup and how much he’d like to do the next one and how Egypt are going to win this thing anyway. Then he decides he was wrong in the first instance.

He’s not cheating. He is making a more informed decision after being supplied with new information, much of it non-football related.

On Saturday night, it was Switzerland’s turn to give Argentina a good Egypt-ing. Once again, VAR was there to help. A Swiss player went down, ostensibly clipped from behind. He rolled around in terrible pain. The Argentinean was yellow carded. Not a big deal in the grand scheme.

Open this photo in gallery:

Back to the monitor. The Swiss, Breel Embolo, was play acting. Pretty egregiously. He was already on a yellow. A second meant he was ejected, and the Swiss were pooched. They managed to limp into the extra period, where Argentina pounded them.

Is this fixing? No.

Would the Swiss have gotten the same benefit if the situation were reversed, and one of Argentina’s stars was doing the old divey divey, rolly rolly, which they are known to do? Err.

Again, in England vs. Norway on Saturday, a ball hoofed up high and down the field clipped the cable that runs the FOX spider cam. A chip in the ball is supposed to note any such interference, but it didn’t. But no need to worry. Anyone who owns any sort of electronics knows they are infallible.

Whatever the case, the ball appeared to drop unnaturally. England picked it up and scored. Later, the Norway coach called it a pass “straight from heaven.”

Some time after that, England’s Djed Spence was judo flipped in the box. Clear penalty. Back to VAR. Not so clear penalty. Would that decision have gone the other way had England been losing 2-1 instead of winning by that score? Yeah, pull the other one.

Cathal Kelly: This World Cup could use a deep run from England

This is how it goes. You win some, you lose some and VAR is there prodding officials to think about which of those outcomes would be best for the tribe. Some would call that fairness. I call it game rigging.

We continue to think of fixing in monetary terms. Someone is slipped a brown envelope under a formica table and red cards start flying.

That’s not how it works in an environment where status means more than money. Can you imagine how much prestige comes with refereeing at the World Cup? Wherever you live, you would be known, respected and envied.

What would you do to ensure that social benefit continue? Just about anything within reason, I’d think. You would be hyper-attuned to signals from above. Nothing need ever be said.

When the man in charge of the operation is getting phone calls and wild things start happening, that signal is clear. There’s what’s right and then there’s what’s right, and you had better understand the difference.

The only thing that’s new here is how transparent the con has been made. Working in tandem, Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino have yanked away the cover of reasonable doubt. No football conspiracy is too outrageous to be dismissed out of hand any more.

The more interesting question than ‘Is the World Cup fixed?’ is ‘Does it matter?’

Clearly, it doesn’t. Nobody’s going to boycott matches or stop watching. If anything, the drama makes them more inclined to tune in. We now expect that things are unfair, that the rich should become richer, and that anybody with enough juice gets away with it.

Like a lot of other things that are popular right now, the World Cup tells us who we are. It’s not football’s fault if we don’t like what we hear.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the score at the time of a foul in the Egypt-Argentina game.