Хөлбөмбөгийн ертөнц дэх хуйвалдааны онолууд

Get free access to the most comprehensive World Cup coverage in The Athletic app.

It has been a busy few days for World Cup conspiracy theorists.

First came the decision to suspend Folarin Balogun’s red-card ban for USMNT’s round-of-16 match against Belgium. That unprecedented act would inevitably have attracted raised eyebrows, but the fact that U.S. President Donald Trump telephoned FIFA president Gianni Infantino to raise objections to the red card immediately sparked speculation about nefarious motives.

Then, on Tuesday, Egypt’s controversial 3-2 defeat to Argentina — or Lionel Messi’s Argentina, as they usually referred to — prompted Egypt striker Mostafa Ziko to say the trophy is “directed towards Argentina”.

This is, however, typical for football’s biggest tournament, where the high stakes, global audience and potential for political interference all offer the perfect environment for conspiracy theories to flourish.

We’ve put on our tin foil hats and discovered some declassified documents to bring you the best of the World Cup conspiracy theory, past and present.

The World Cup draw was rigged to favour the hosts

This comes up every four years but when the highest-rated football nation that the 2026 hosts — Mexico, Canada and the United States — landed between them in the group stages was Switzerland, conspiracy theories raged.

Hosts traditionally do better than expected at a World Cup but if you live in the land of alternative realities, that overperformance cannot be attributed to home advantage (a common factor across sport), or to the years of resources poured into producing a team that will make a home nation proud. Nope, the draw is always rigged.

Of course, the host nation also has the advantage of being a top seed in the draw, meaning they avoid Brazil, France and Argentina, but how easy do Mexico, Canada and the U.S. have it?

Well, judging from the pre-tournament standings of every team at the tournament, Spain were handed the easiest draw, with the FIFA ranking of the teams they drew adding up to 144 (67 for Cape Verde, 61 for Saudi Arabia and 16 for Uruguay). That was the largest number for any group.

Canada had the joint-second-easiest draw (139 for Qatar, 64 for Bosnia and Herzegovina and 19 Switzerland), but Mexico only had the sixth-easiest, about par in a 12-group tournament.

And the most difficult draw of the seeds based on FIFA ranking? Well, that was the U.S., who played Paraguay (41st), Australia (27th) and Turkey (22nd), the best team to come through the UEFA play-offs. The winners of those play-offs were unknown when the draw was made (Canada could have landed the 12th-ranked Italy but got their conquerors Bosnia and Herzegovina instead).

Maybe that just means the FIFA rankings don’t reflect reality (and yes, Panama didn’t exactly feel like the 34th-best team in the world when losing all three of their matches). Or maybe it means the U.S. are just incredible at football and are going to win the World Cup. We’ll leave you to decide which of those theories is more likely.

Conspiracy rating: Bar-room chat

Nike made Ronaldo play in the 1998 final

Original Ronaldo, R9, O Fenomeno… one of the greatest to ever kick a ball. Or, rather, caress a ball while gliding effortlessly past several defenders before leaving the goalkeeper seeing stars by rounding him to score a slalom worldie.

Yep, that was the player we all fell in love with, but Ronaldo’s story is made whole by his redemption arc after the 1998 World Cup final. He had scored four goals to help carry Brazil to the showpiece in Paris, but Ronaldo, then aged 21, suffered a seizure in his hotel room just hours before kick-off.

“Out of the blue, you started shaking a lot,” team-mate Roberto Carlos tells Ronaldo in The Phenomenon, a documentary about his life and times. “I was really scared. And I hadn’t realised you’d swallowed your tongue. I didn’t know. I just saw you staring at me, completely stiff. To this day, I don’t know what happened. But it was horrible.”

With medical tests apparently finding nothing wrong (Ronaldo later put it down to emotional stress), he declared himself fit to play (despite famously not appearing on the initial team sheet, with Edmundo listed in his place).

A dejected Ronaldo after the 1998 World Cup final (Antonio Scorza/AFP via Getty Images)

Brazil lost 3-0 to France and Ronaldo touched the ball just 20 times. It was a sad sight and conspiracies soon surfaced that Ronaldo had been forced to play, either via collusion between the Brazilian and French governments, or via pressure from his and Brazil’s sponsor Nike.

A congressional inquiry commission was launched in Brazil to investigate the relationship between the country’s FA and Nike, with Ronaldo forced to deny that the sportswear giant had made him play in the final.

“I only played after medical tests showed I was clinically and physically fit to do so,” Ronaldo said at the hearing. “If the tests had shown otherwise, I would not have played. The only thing Nike has asked of me is that I wear their boots.”

Conspiracy rating: Declassified

Referees favoured South Korea in 2002

Well, there’s plenty of evidence in favour of this one.

“The level of referees is very poor, very low,” Pele said during the 2002 World Cup (although he also named Nicky Butt as one of the best players in the world that year, so who knows what to believe). Even FIFA president Sepp Blatter labelled some assistant referees a “disaster”.

There were undoubtedly several questionable decisions made and some of them certainly benefitted joint-hosts South Korea, who beat Portugal, Spain and Italy during an improbable run to the semi-finals.

Whisper the name Byron Moreno in the ear of any Italian football fan and you’ll elicit a tirade of angry swear words and wild hand gesticulations. He was the Ecuadorian referee who sent off Francesco Totti for diving in the box (a penalty should have been given), gave South Korea a soft penalty and ignored an elbow on Alessandro Del Piero, among many controversial calls that enraged Italy. They lost 2-1 after Ahn Jung-hwan’s golden goal in extra time.

The fact Moreno was later suspended for 20 matches back home and then, in 2011 was sent to prison for smuggling heroin, didn’t exactly improve his reputation. But no wrongdoing over his performance in 2002 was ever uncovered.

Conspiracy rating: Just missing a smoking gun

Officials are being lenient to attract American fans

We’re seeing a lot more red cards at this World Cup (more than the last two combined, albeit that figure was skewed by a strange opening game between Mexico and South Africa that accounted for three of them) but are referees also being lenient? It feels like they are ignoring challenges that would previously have been deemed fouls, certainly in European football.

It seems referees have been encouraged to take a lenient view on petty fouls and encourage a free-flowing game, with the ball in play for longer. Quite where hydration breaks fit into that philosophy, we’ll let you decide.

Anyway, why are they letting fouls go? Because they want to attract American fans to the sport? And is that why Messi wasn’t sent off for that reckless challenge on Algeria’s Aissa Mandi?

Lionel Messi was not even booked for this challenge on Aissa Mandi (Tom Weller/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Well, The Athletic’s refereeing expert Graham Scott says it simply wasn’t a red-card offence.

“Few referees would have dismissed him for the challenge — not because it was Messi but because there was no intent or intensity in his actions,” Scott said. “Bear in mind that the ref was Szymon Marciniak, who was in charge of the 2022 World Cup final. We are not talking about a novice.”

As for favouring superstars – ie, you can’t possibly send off Messi and then have him suspended — Scott added: “The very best (referees) can set all prejudice aside and judge each incident on its merits and in context, and every ref will swear that they are always striving to do so.

“But there are few officials who can achieve this goal absolutely, as all know that the scrutiny that will follow an incorrect red card shown to a legend of the game will be unbearable. We’re only human.”

If referees were deliberately aiding superstar players, that doesn’t explain why Kylian Mbappe was denied a clear penalty against Senegal.

However, the idea that there has been an edict to let the game flow, just like in France’s last-16 win over a roughhousing Paraguay on Saturday, to help charm American audiences is neither totally implausible nor unwelcome.

Conspiracy rating: Grassy knoll-adjacent.

The CIA poisoned Gordon Banks

Reigning champions England were considered to have a better team in 1970 than when they won the 1966 World Cup. At 2-0 up against West Germany in the quarter-finals in Mexico, they were looking good to retain their crown.

Then goalkeeper Peter Bonetti, deputising for the ill Gordon Banks (one of the best goalkeepers in the world), let a shot roll under his body and a header loop over him as the West Germans produced a miraculous comeback to win 3-2.

Had Banks been playing, England would surely have won, which is exactly why the CIA poisoned him. Very allegedly.

Was Banks’ gastroenteritis due to a dodgy burrito, or something more sinister?

Gordon Banks missed England’s quarter-final exit at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico (Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

“The rationale was that the military dictatorship in Brazil wanted a popularity boost, the Americans wanted to keep them in place, and so they helped them win the World Cup. That was the allegation,” investigative journalist Gabriel Gatehouse, who has produced a podcast on the conspiracy theory, told the BBC.

Gatehouse and Banks’ grandson Ed Jervis say they discovered the Brazilian team had help from NASA in their pre-World Cup training. And not just so they could find space in the final third.

Conspiracy rating: Time for a tin foil hat

Brazil’s Branco was drugged

During the 1990 last-16 heavyweight clash between Brazil and Argentina in Turin, Italy, key Brazil player Branco drank from a bottle supposedly handed to him by Argentina physio Miguel Di Lorenzo, who was on the field treating a player.

Branco said he felt ill and dizzy shortly afterwards, and within minutes, against the run of play, Claudio Caniggia scored the winning goal for Argentina.

The allegation was that Branco’s drink was spiked with a tranquiliser. It was never proven but Argentina’s coach at the time, Carlos Bilardo, gave substance to the theory 15 years later when saying: “I’m not saying it didn’t happen.”

Conspiracy rating: A

Argentina’s route to the 1978 final was fixed

Sorry Argentina, but there’s a recurring theme here.

In their 1978 tournament on home soil, Argentina had to beat Peru by four clear goals to top their group and reach the final ahead of Brazil (there were two group stages and the winners of the second groups went straight to the final).

Peru were a good team; they had beaten Scotland and drawn with the Netherlands to reach the second stage, but Argentina walloped them 6-0 and, well, it smelled pretty fishy. Claims of corruption almost instantly began to percolate given Argentina was at that point under a military dictatorship led by Jorge Rafael Videla.

They were never proven but in 2012, Peruvian senator Genaro Ledesma stated that a deal had been struck between Videla and Peru’s president at the time, Francisco Morales Bermudez, in return for Argentina imprisoning 13 Peruvian dissidents.

“Videla needed to win the World Cup to cleanse Argentina’s bad image around the world, so he only accepted the group if Peru allowed the Argentina national team to triumph,” Ledesma told a Buenos Aires court.

Was the Peru goalkeeper bribed? Was a large shipment of grain sent between the two countries as payment? Was one of Peru’s best players, Jose Velasquez, substituted as part of the deal? Hmmmm.

Conspiracy rating: As Fox Mulder would say, the truth is out there.