Inside Track: Louth should have played the Trump card
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
Did Louth County Board miss a trick? Seán Callaghan was red-carded in the All-Ireland qualifier and subsequently suspended, causing the young St Mary’s player to miss last Sunday’s semi-final.
The County Board decided against appealing the suspension. This was understandable – it was most unlikely the decision would have been overturned.
There was another route that could have been followed, however. Get secretary Stephen Murphy to bang off a letter to the big white house on Washington’s Pennsylvania Avenue asking its resident, Trump – no, it would be better in this case to refer to him as Donald Trump, President of America – if he could intervene. Maybe he could have a chat with Croke Park, seeking clemency for Callaghan?
As we all know, Trump has form in this regard. When it seemed striker Folarin Balogun was going to miss the US’s last 16 clash with Belgium following his dismissal in the game with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Trump got on the blower to his buddy, Gianni Infantino, asking him – maybe ordering him – to scrub Balogun’s suspension.
The FIFA president was unlikely to refuse. After all, wasn’t it the same Infantino who gifted Trump a peace prize on the night the World Cup was launched?
Trump was looking for something bigger than that around the time – like a Nobel Peace Prize. The judges knew better – how can we honour someone who wouldn’t know peace if it struck him in the face?
It’s debatable if Trump knows whether a football is stuffed or blown up, yet here he was last week telling us that Balogun’s misdemeanour was nothing more than a clash of bodies between “two fine athletes.”
It’s Inside Track’s first wish that Trump doesn’t come to Ireland for this year’s Irish Open, being staged on one of his golf courses.
The second is that if he does, he doesn’t go along to see the local Doonbeg Gaelic team playing in the Clare championship he might have something to say there as well, though it’s unlikely he would get much of a hearing from the County Board, or even the Doonbeg GFC boys and girls.
Arguably the biggest sports association in the world, FIFA, made an absolute fool of itself, acting in a most lily-livered way.
While the tournament so far has thrown up some fine individual displays, great games and surprise results – and could have a final to remember – the Infantino/Trump farce will have prominence when it comes to the final analysis.
There were no neutrals reaching for their hankies when US – with the little piggy in the middle, Balogun, included – were thrashed by Belgium.