FIFA needs to reckon with its embarrassing VAR reality after Folarin Balogun red card

When is enough, enough?When does FIFA get issued a yellow car — or even a red — for its poor performance employing a referee who’s in over his head in the World Cup, the largest global sporting event on the planet?And VAR. What the hell are we doing with VAR?The concept of VAR (video assisted referee) is a sound one — much like replay in the NFL and other sports — in that we want to get the calls right.But who can possibly argue that the match referee, Raphael Claus, or VAR official, Juan Ernesto Soto Arévalo, got it right when America’s stop striker Folarin Balogun was ejected from Wednesday’s Round of 32 game against Bosnia-Herzegovina with a red card in the 64th minute of a tight match?This is not some jingoistic, pro-American red-white-and-blue-tinted glasses complaint about the U.S.team being wronged.It’s common damned sense from someone who not only covers the sport as a journalist but is also a fan.Not even Tarik Muharemovic, the Bosnian player whose right ankle Balogun accidentally stepped on — read: accidentally — would argue that Balogun should have been sent off.Claus, in fact, never even reached into his pocket to issue a yellow card on the play in real time.So, what does that tell you?That he didn’t see the act as flagrant.What exactly Soto Arevalo saw that spurred him to call for the red card after watching the same replays the rest of the soccer world has seen and is appalled by the call is an entirely different story.The decision to red card Balogun, at its core, was an irresponsible one and one that has taken away one of the most dynamic players in the tournament (and the world) in what will be one of the most watched sporting events ever on Monday night when the U.S.

plays Belgium.Is that good for the sport?Is it good for the World Cup?Those questions require no efforts to answer because the answer is too obvious.The decision to take Balogun away from the USMNT against Belgium absolutely compromises the Americans’ chance ...