In this opinion piece, the Guardian's Jonathan Wilson argues that Fifa president Gianni Infantino is jeopardising football's credibility at the 2026 World Cup by interfering with the sport's integrity, most notably by suspending Folarin Balogun's suspension after a red card. Wilson's central contention is that football's value lies in its unpredictability and authenticity — the sense that outcomes are genuine and unknowable — and that any perception of manipulation, whether match-fixing or bias towards big teams and big names, risks "killing" the sport by breeding corrosive cynicism among fans.

To illustrate, Wilson recalls witnessing a dramatic late Chelsea comeback in a Premier League game some 25 years ago while sitting with Romanian journalists who, shaped by the match-fixing culture of the Ceauşescu era, instinctively saw a fix where he saw drama. He notes this has been an unusually shock-free tournament: the four favourites were seeded to balance the draw, and beyond Paraguay beating Germany on penalties and Norway defeating Brazil, genuine upsets have been scarce. He also points to Lionel Messi escaping a red card for a foul on Algeria's Aïssa Mandi as another example of decisions that fuel doubt, leaving a quarter-final line-up dominated by big teams, big names and Switzerland.