How The Overturned Red Card Changed More Than the Game

Jul 10

5 min read

Updated: Jul 24

Like many sports fans, I've been thoroughly enjoying the FIFA Club World Cup. Like many Americans, though, I'm still trying to make sense of football's seemingly endless rules—when referees intervene, when VAR is used, and how those decisions are ultimately made.

That uncertainty took center stage during one of the tournament's most talked-about moments involving USMNT forward Folarin Balogun.

After Balogun received a straight red card, multiple media outlets immediately reported what everyone understood to be true: under FIFA's rules, the resulting one-match suspension was automatic and not subject to appeal. It was widely accepted that the United States would play without one of its top scorers.

Then, just one day before the match, FIFA announced that Balogun would be eligible to play after all, citing an unprecedented application of a little-used provision of its disciplinary code. Whether the decision was right or wrong isn't the point.

The controversy wasn't the decision. It was the explanation—or more accurately, the lack of one. Players were confused. Fans were confused. Commentators spent hours trying to piece together why a suspension everyone believed was automatic had suddenly disappeared.

Almost overnight, the conversation shifted. It was no longer about whether Balogun deserved to play but whether the rules were being applied consistently and whether the system itself could be trusted.

That distinction matters.

The frustration surrounding an unexplained decision is not unique to the World Cup. It happens every day inside organizations.

Managers approve promotions, market adjustments, salary increases, retention awards, and incentive payouts with little or no explanation of why those decisions were made. Employees are left to fill in the blanks themselves.

When people don't understand the reasoning behind a decision, they stop evaluating the decision itself and begin questioning the fairness of the process. The issue shifts from Was this the right decision? to Can I trust the system?

Communication Legitimizes Governance

People cannot trust a process they cannot explain.

Communication legitimizes governance.

The quickest way to undermine a Compensation Philosophy is to make decisions employees cannot understand.

Give employees a clear understanding of how decisions are made and even the most complicated compensation programs will be viewed as credible.

Total Rewards Principle #2 applies here--employees must understand how they are paid. Employees who don't understand which behaviors and outcomes are rewarded cannot align themselves with organizational objectives or the processes designed to achieve them.

Give employees a clear understanding of how decisions are made and even the most complicated compensation programs will be viewed as credible.

The consequences extend far beyond compensation. When managers, HR, and employees cannot explain how rewards relate to performance or organizational objectives, the connection between behavior and reward begins to weaken. Once that connection is lost, Total Rewards loses much of its ability to influence behavior. Employees no longer see how their actions contribute to organizational success, and the relationship between financial investment and business outcomes becomes increasingly difficult to defend.

Eventually, it becomes clear that poor communication is merely the symptom. The real problem is a breakdown in governance.

The overturned Red Card revealed something far more important than a controversial officiating decision. It exposed what happens when governance loses credibility.

That's exactly what Total Rewards Principle #8—A House Without Rules Is NOT a House—warns us against.

By applying a rarely used rule in an unprecedented way, FIFA created the perception that different players were being held to different standards. Whether that perception was justified became almost irrelevant. Confidence in the consistency of the process had already begun to erode.

Total Rewards Principle #8 focuses on the very point that when rules are unpredictable no one can truly know what is expected.

Why This Matters

Regardless of whether you agree with the final decision or not, the process by which FIFA acted leaves a very clear message: not all players play by the same rules. That is a very different and very concerning issue for everyone. It’s not just that the rules were arbitrary, it was a lack of governance at play.

When leadership permits too many exceptions and accommodations beyond the norm, it undermines the integrity of the process and degrades trust in the system.

As exceptions become the norm, governance begins to erode. HR loses its ability to explain decisions. Compensation loses its credibility as the steward of the Compensation Philosophy. Managers learn that exceptions are rewarded while employees learn that influence matters more than process. Eventually, the written rules become less important than who has the authority to ignore them.

When leadership permits too many exceptions and accommodations beyond the norm, it undermines the integrity of the process and degrades trust in the system.

Governance is more than policies and procedures. It is the shared confidence that decisions are made transparently, consistently, and by the appropriate authority. Governance minimizes risk by ensuring that stated rules—not individual preferences—drive organizational decisions.

When trust in governance is broken you lose trust in the system. Trust is lost when employees believe the rules don’t apply to some. Organizations, like homes need rules to lead clean, meaning all the accountable parties are using governance practices to ensure controls around risk are enforced and decisions are made compliant with all legal and appropriately stated processes. It is why a home without rules is not a home. Homes should be safe and secure; homes that don’t Lead Clean aren’t.

That is why Total Rewards Principle #2 – Employees Must Understand How They Are Paid does more than improve communication. It reinforces Total Rewards Principle #8 – A House Without Rules Is NOT a House.

Governance is about creating confidence that decisions are made consistently, transparently, and by the appropriate authority. Without that confidence, even well-designed systems begin to lose credibility.

Key Takeaways

Organizations often believe their greatest governance risk is having poor policies or weak controls. More often, the greater risk is that employees simply do not understand how those policies are applied.

Employees who don't understand the process begin to believe there is no process at all.

Behavioral science tells us that people evaluate fairness through procedural justice—the perceived fairness of the process—not just the outcome itself. Employees can accept difficult decisions when they believe the rules are clear, applied consistently, and explained openly. They struggle to accept decisions that appear arbitrary or unexplained.

Employees who don't understand the process begin to believe there is no process at all.

The FIFA controversy was never really about a red card. It became a story about trust. The same thing happens inside organizations every day. Employees rarely lose confidence because they disagree with a single compensation decision. They lose confidence when they cannot understand how the decision was reached or why similar situations appear to produce different outcomes.

Compensation is one of an organization's most visible governance systems. Every promotion, salary adjustment, market increase, incentive payout, or exception communicates something about what the organization values—and how faithfully it follows its own rules.

Organizations that "Lead Clean" don't simply create policies. They create confidence that those policies are understood, consistently applied, and reinforced through every management decision.

Employees who understand how decisions are made are more likely to trust the governance behind them. Because in the end, people don't expect every decision to favor them; they expect the rules to be understood, applied consistently, and worthy of their trust.

Organizations rarely lose credibility because they make difficult decisions. They lose credibility because they make decisions that cannot be explained.