The signs were all there that the 2026 FIFA World Cup would be different.
In December 2025, amid uncertainty over how hosts the United States’ attempts to crack down on immigration and threats to bar protest-filled cities from hosting matches, the most powerful man in world football, Gianni Infantino, awarded US President Donald Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.
Already drawing ire from a close relationship with Trump, the move drew worldwide condemnation, as well as fears for what would come next.
Australian footballing royalty Craig Foster labelled it ‘a shameful day for the beautiful game’, writing on X that the award ‘stains the reputation of Infantino, FIFA, and places football as an enabler of Trump’s attacks on international law, multilateral systems, on justice, and accountability’.
It would prove a portent of what was to come.
No World Cup is complete without accusations of corruption, contentious decisions, and claims the host nation and the tournament’s biggest superstars have had plenty of chips fall their way.
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Italians will never forgive FIFA or referee Byron Moreno for the extraordinary circumstances that saw them eliminated from the 2002 edition by co-hosts South Korea, while Australia’s own FFA infamously spent tens of millions on an ill-fated bid to host the 2022 tournament that eventually went to Qatar via an unprecedented bribery scandal.
At face value, this year’s World Cup is little different.
As the tournament began, the first barrage was directed at the introduction of two hydration breaks nicely dividing each half into, well, quarters; ostensibly to help players deal with the not-so-searing heat of mid-year North America.
“It’s 24 degrees in Mexico City, apparently. So that hydration break can get in the bin. Absolutely putrid,” was Australian football expert Vince Rugari’s biting analysis on X.
The Guardian’s chief sports writer Barney Ronay went even further, calling it ‘an abomination, a desecration of the basic fabric of the sport, enacted by sleight of hand, and completely unnecessary in this form’.
“With breathtaking chutzpah, Fifa has made football into a game of four quarters, has crossed a line nobody thought possible, and done it right under our noses,” he added.
Controversy of a more standard sort has continually revolved around reigning champions Argentina, and in particular the great Lionel Messi, still the biggest drawcard at his sixth World Cup.
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“It’s 100 per cent a red card for Lionel Messi,” declared former Venezuelan striker Ale Moreno on ESPN.
Yet Messi would avoid being booked completely, prompting a furious Algeria to lodge a formal complaint with FIFA amid universal condemntation.
“The fact that this wasn’t even looked at will set a precedent,” former Scottish great Craig Burley opined on ESPN.
“How do you then go back and officiate it differently? You can’t, even if it’s Lionel Messi.”
Such was the furore that the initial reaction to Folarin Balogun’s red card for a similar tackle in Team USA’s round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina was outrage at a supposed double standard, with a “Free Flo” campaign spreading rapidly among both fans and the US media.
The controversy followed Messi and Argentina through to the round of 16, where a contentious, thrilling win over Socceroos conquerors Egypt saw player Mostafa Zico and coach Hossam Hassan launch emotional tirades at the officiating.
“Perhaps they wanted to keep the world champions in the competition. Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running,” Hassan told BeIn Sports.
“In football, there are sometimes external factors that go beyond the technical aspects. The world champions received support at every level.”
Having had a crucial goal controversially disallowed due to a foul in the build up discovered by the VAR – English journalist Henry Winter quipped on X “If VAR had gone back any further in that Egyptian move Tutankhamun would be involved” – Zico didn’t hold back in a post-match interview.
“I don’t know what happened in the second half. Strange things happened that everyone saw. It was as clear as the sun in broad daylight,” the 29-year old said.
“The referee has robbed a whole nation of its efforts.
“Congratulations, Argentina, on winning the World Cup.”
Those questions won’t be going away anytime soon – even in matches not involving the South Americans.
Tournament favourite France’s quarter-final date with Morocco on Friday morning (AEST) is doing conspiracy theorists’ work for them, featuring not only an Argentinian referee Facundo Tello, but two Argentinian assistant referees, an Argentinian fourth official and an Argentinian reserve assistant ref.
And all that’s before the big, orange elephant in the room.
influence from politicians goes hand in hand with World Cups.
But the previous clubhouse leader for sketchy orders from above – Argentina’s dictatorial General Jorge Videla and USA Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s appearance in Peru’s rooms before losing 6-0 to La Albiceleste in 1974, allowing them to leapfrog Brazil on goal difference and advance to the final under now-antiquated knockout rules – got its greatest ever challenger when FIFA, on the urging of President Trump, froze Balogun’s mandatory red card suspension to free him to face a furious Belgium.
FIFA’s public position maintains that Trump’s personal urging of Infantino was irrelevant to the decision, with Infantino officially stating: “FIFA’s judicial bodies are independent.
“They operate autonomously, apply the FIFA Disciplinary Code, and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them. Their independence is essential to the credibility and integrity of football, and this must always be respected,” his statement reads.
It was never going to pass muster; especially not with Trump proclaiming to all that would hear that “I’m the one who got them to do it”.
Former Liverpool Premier League-winning manager – and new Germany coach – Jurgen Klopp has led the charge in response.
“This is our sport, not theirs,” Klopp said of the controversy on Germany’s MagentaTV.
“If Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino really sorted this out between themselves, it is madness. It calls everything into question.”
Writing in The Guardian, Ronay dubbed it ‘a genuinely jaw-dropping sporting scandal’.
“Dictators always look unassailable while they’re dictating. But who knows, this might even be the first significant note of Infantino’s own endgame, the moment football’s great preening waxwork power-gargoyle flew just a bit too close to the sun and began to melt inside his own blue suit,” he said.
“For Infantino, for FIFA and for football this is deadly serious. And Infantino must be held to account here, at the very least for the breathtaking levels of vanity and power-lust that have normalised such interventions.”
Such was the depth of the shock that it enabled England legend Wayne Rooney to briefly assume the unlikely role as chief voice of an aggrieved global public.
“I think it’s an absolute disgrace,” the former striker said on BBC Sport.
“Infantino, he should be ashamed of this because I think the sportsmanship of this game is in question here.”
“If I’m USA’s opponent, I’d be absolutely fuming. I just think it’s wrong in every way.”
Infantino has never been far away from controversy since succeeding the scandal-plagued Sepp Blatter in the top job in 2016.
He notably drew backlash during the 2022 World Cup after responding to questions about the dangers faced by the LGBTQIA+ community and migrant workers in Qatar by infamously remarking “Today, I feel Arab. Today, I feel African. Today, I feel gay. Today, I feel disabled. Today, I feel [like] a migrant worker”.
This tournament, heightened by his close relationship with Trump – a headline drawer if ever there was one – has only seen the spotlight on the 56-year old deepen, and calls for him to pay the price for the litany of controversies his organisation have faced this tournament have never been louder.
Socceroos great turned outspoken pundit Robbie Slater, in particular, believes Infantino’s position at FIFA is ‘untentable’.
“It’s just unprecedented … it’ll be remembered because things that happen in the World Cup, they talk about it in 20 years,” he said on Stan Sport.
“Infantino’s gotta be in trouble.”
The curly question facing Infantino’s many critics has a big dollar sign in front of it.
For all the controversy, sitting proudly atop each scandal and every cynical decision, is the unprecedented financial windfall this tournament is for FIFA.
Those pesky hydration breaks? Condemned by all, and worth US$500 million to broadcasters in the USA alone, according to estimates.
Ludicrously expensive ticket prices? They haven’t stopped 99.7 per cent of seats being filled thus far at the tournament, according to FIFA’s publicised data – enough to shatter the previous tournament attendance record, set back in 1994 (also in the USA), midway through the group stage.
The beautiful game has seldom been more spectacular, either. England’s gutsy, rollicking 3-2 triumph over Mexico in their own backyard in the round of 16 had the nation most resigned to despair daring to dream.
The decision to expand the tournament to 48 teams, and to have it hosted primarily by a nation in which football is more a curiosity than a religion, has been spectacularly vindicated, too.
Tournament newcomers Cabo Verde stunned all by reaching the knockout stages, and by briefly threatening the miracle of all miracles against Messi and Argentina, proved beyond doubt that a 48-team World Cup wouldn’t be a lopsided affair by default.
It’s an inescapable fact no amount of controversy can quash: football is big business, and FIFA – and by extension, those who lead it – almost too big to fail.
Blatter’s tenure proved that enough corruption can have consequences even at FIFA.
Whether the fury of a footballing world not quite jilted enough by the latest string of scandals to stop billions of eyes being glued to every moment of the most prestigious sporting event on the planet can topple Infantino in the same way remains to be seen.