The gods are not mocked - World Cup sketch

I wonder if Donald Trump will take time out of his busy (golfing) schedule to see Christopher Nolan's newly-released epic, The Odyssey?

It seems unlikely (not enough car chases) but if he does he might learn something useful about hubris and nemesis following his disastrously brazen intervention in the Folarin Balogun red card debacle. Trump, a self-proclaimed leading expert on football fouls (despite admitting not knowing what a red card was), phoned his pal, FIFA president and Trump ass-licker-in-chief, Gianni Infantino (a White House insider was quoted as saying if he spent any more time in the Oval Office "they would have to start charging him rent"), to get the one-match ban on Balogun overturned after he fouled Bosnia and Herzegovina defender, Tarik Muharemovic, and got a straight red card from the Brazilian ref, Raphael Claus, for doing so.

Trump, not widely known for caring about the welfare of young Black men, preferring to see them jailed, shot or deported by ICE, realised that the striker was an asset the US team could ill-afford to lose in the forthcoming US- Belgium match. A quick phone call later and Infantino was declaring "nessun problema", a view not shared by UEFA who, in a stinging rebuke, accused FIFA of crossing "a red line".

But, you see, here's the thing. Balogun's parents are Nigerians living in London. In 2001, trying to return to the UK following a trip to visit family in New York, a seven-months pregnant Florence Balogun was stopped by airline officials and refused boarding for her return flight. Stranded in Brooklyn, she stayed with relatives and gave birth to Folarin, which automatically entitled him to US birth citizenship - the very right assured under the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution which Trump has just been trying to repeal until thwarted by a Supreme Court judgment. The naked, self-serving hypocrisy of the man knows no bounds but, as with his tariffs and the war on Iran, is ultimately self-defeating. (What will he do now, one wonders, deport Balogun?)

Final score: Belgium 4 - USA 1, US out of the tournament.

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