Argentina will play their second consecutive World Cup final on Sunday, but the reigning world champions' triumph has been overshadowed by conspiracy theories. In many quarters, both among Argentina's opponents and in Swedish television studios, there has been speculation that the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) has paved the way for Argentina to reach the final.
According to Jack Werner, there are several reasons why a World Cup can be a breeding ground for conspiracy theories.
If you imagine that conspiracy thinking is the product of a situation where a number of conditions are met, then a great many of them are met in this case, he says.
Infantino and Trump
Werner highlights that people's lack of trust in FIFA, which has been surrounded by several scandals over the years, combined with distrust of US President Donald Trump, are some of the reasons that fuel the conspiracy theories.
With everything from the 2015 corruption scandal to the White House's call to Infantino (Gianni, FIFA president) to lift a ban on an American player (Folarin Balogun), there is great distrust of FIFA. That call is probably what has affected confidence in FIFA the most during the championship.
The fact that many fans feel they have a lot to gain or lose in a World Cup often makes it easier to start thinking in conspiracy terms, according to Werner. The threshold for feeling sufficiently informed to form an opinion is also low in a World Cup.
Many steps
It's easy for conspiracy theories to arise if the threshold for feeling like an expert is low, which is the case in football. I'm not particularly knowledgeable or a big football enthusiast. But when I see a decision, I can really think that it doesn't look wise.
When many people express their conspiratorial thoughts, for example on social media and in other media, the social stigma becomes lower.
Conspiracy theories are often seen as something strange and you can get strange looks when you express them. But with trust in FIFA being so low, it's hardly strange to think that everything FIFA does is corrupt. Then again, being a bit conspiratorial is part of watching the match itself, surely it's part of football fan culture to be suspicious of the referee?
VAR - a problem?
Jack Werner also highlights VAR as a potential part of the problem. Although the system is supposed to help referees, he believes that in some cases it has the opposite effect. One example that created suspicion was when Egypt had a goal disallowed against Argentina when the referee, after a VAR review, found an Argentine free kick almost 20 seconds before the ball went into the goal.
Ruling out that goal was completely off-topic if you are going to have VAR now. The remaining measure of arbitrariness in the assessment is why you look at VAR in one situation but choose not to in another. The conditions for seeing exactly what is going on are great, but the decisions should still be based on the judgment of an individual person, which is a poor condition for creating predictability.
What is your theory that FIFA helped Argentina reach the World Cup final?
I also think that FIFA seems corrupt. But there are a lot of steps from them supposedly deciding that Argentina should win the World Cup to a referee having a bad day or a referee having his own little opinion that he's messing around with, or whatever it may be. So it's a long step between this grand theory and the little things that happen in everyday life. But it's the grand theory that attracts us, something that explains the whole thing for us.
According to the Living History Forum, a conspiracy theory is a theory that is not proven according to the principles of society. Instead, it is built on various arguments where circumstantial evidence becomes evidence. An official explanation is refuted by making up or exaggerating contradictory details.
Source: Living History Forum
