Hatim Taiyebali

#MUFC at heart. Everything else comes after.

[Hatim Taiyebali @EhHatla7]

Growing up, whether you followed football or not whenever you heard the name 'Pele' you immediately thought of football. That was his legacy.
What if I told you, @Cristiano has now scored more official goals than Pele.
Let that sink in.
#WitnessingGreatness

[The Touchmine | 𝐓 @TouchmineX]

🚨💣 𝗠𝗔𝗝𝗢𝗥 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚:

According to reports, Adidas allegedly paid in 2014 for Lionel Messi to receive the World Cup Best Player award. 😳🇦🇷

It is further alleged that Adidas also paid in 2022 and 2026 to help Argentina reach the World Cup final. 💣👀

Adidas is now reportedly facing a serious investigation.

Via: @InfiltradoRM

[Hatim Taiyebali @EhHatla7]

@MichaelVaughan Please don't.

[Football on TNT Sports @footballontnt]

"Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running."

"The world champions received support at every level."

"We have been treated unfairly and it has been an injustice."

"I am not going to watch another game of this tournament."

Egypt's manager Hossam Hassan went off after their defeat to Argentina 🗣️

[Shaiel Ben-Ephraim @academic_la]

There is no conclusive proof. But the circumstantial evidence that there is pro-Argentina bias in FIFA affecting the World Cup:

1) In the group stage opener against Algeria, Messi caught Aïssa Mandi with a studs-up challenge on the Achilles and escaped any card. FIFA later admitted the VAR officials got it wrong and sanctioned them.

2) The inconsistency became undeniable when the United States' Folarin Balogun was sent off in the Round of 32 for a near-identical foot-on-ankle challenge on Bosnia's Tarik Muharemović. Pundits directly compared the red card to Messi's uncarded foul on Mandi.

3) In the 2026 Round of 32 against Cape Verde, referee Drew Fischer did not enforce the tournament's new rule requiring an injured player to remain off the pitch after treatment. He waited for Argentina's Nicolás Tagliafico to return before allowing a Cape Verde corner. Several uncalled fouls in that game also went Argentina's way.

4) Today against Egypt, with Egypt leading 1-0, Mostafa Ziko finished off a long breakaway to make it 2-0. VAR sent Letexier to the monitor and the goal was disallowed for a Marwan Attia shirt-pull on Lisandro Martínez that occurred roughly 20 seconds earlier and nearly the full length of the pitch from goal.

5) Neutral officiating experts, not just Egyptian fans, called the decision wrong. Former FIFA referee Mark Clattenburg said he did not believe it was a foul and did not believe VAR should have intervened at all, adding that the call was inconsistent with the physical contact referees had allowed all tournament.

6) The winning sequence produced a second grievance. In the buildup to Enzo Fernández's stoppage-time winner, Egypt appealed for a penalty on a Salah challenge and for an Alexis Mac Allister shirt-pull, and VAR checked neither. Hassan cited the unreviewed Mac Allister pull directly in his post-match remarks.

7) The 2026 grievances land on top of a 2022 record In Qatar, Argentina were awarded five penalties, the most ever by a team in a single World Cup edition, with Messi taking all five. That same tournament, Messi handled the ball against the Netherlands in the quarterfinal and escaped a yellow card.

8) FIFA has appointed an all-Argentine crew, led by Facundo Tello, for Thursday's France–Morocco quarterfinal, the tournament's first all-same-country panel.

9) Comments attributed to Infantino after an Argentina match were widely discussed as suggesting bias toward Argentina before he later clarified them, and a deep Messi run drives far more global viewership and revenue than one without him. This establishes incentive.

FIFA cannot be trusted. Egypt was robbed. Argentina are coasting to another title under FIFA protection.

[FLA Henrique @flahenriquebr]

Fizeram um compilado de 4 minutos mostrando os lances em que a Argentina foi favorecida contra o Egito.

Simplesmente um escândalo mundial. Quanta sujeira envolvida. 🤢

[BBC Sport @BBCSport]

"It's clear that this tournament has been fixed."

Egypt's Mostafa Zico was not happy with some of the decisions in their game against Argentina.

[THE DUKE OF MADRID II @thedukeofmadrid]

What did I just watch ??😭😭

[Hatim Taiyebali @EhHatla7]

@NetflixUK "One of the worst decisions at a WC ever" 😂😂😂 - just say you hate that one player

[Hatim Taiyebali @EhHatla7]

They've finally woken up 😂

[ESPN FC @ESPNFC]

“If you give a red card here, the consistency, why is not Messi getting the red card?”

@Jermainejunior on Flo Balogun receiving a red card in the USMNT’s Round of 32 victory.

[The Touchmine | 𝐓 @TouchmineX]

🚨 VAR reviewed 12 goals for fouls in the build-up, all 12 were ruled out. ❌

Yet there have also been 3 goals scored after fouls in the build-up that weren't reviewed by VAR. 🖥️

Every one of them was scored by Argentina. 🇦🇷🤔

[Kimi Regal @RegalKimi]

After Ronaldo won EURO 2016 while Messi was still without a senior international trophy, a common argument across football media, punditry and mainstream football discourse was that international trophies were not essential to determining individual greatness. Football was said to be a team sport, and a player’s legacy should not be reduced to what he won with his national team.

At the time, Messi had lost four major international finals with Argentina and had even retired from international football after the 2016 Copa América final defeat to Chile.

A few months later, Messi returned. What followed was an unusually busy Copa América schedule. The tournament was played in 2015, 2016, 2019 and 2021, four editions in just six years. Many observers could not help but notice that a player who had repeatedly fallen short was being given more opportunities to win in a short period and rightly so. Eventually, Messi won the 2021 Copa América.

For years, the football world had been told that international trophies were not necessary to be considered the greatest of all time. When Messi lacked an international trophy, the importance of international success was routinely downplayed.

Similarly, when Messi lacked a World Cup, it was not considered essential to being the GOAT. Once he won it in Qatar, however, the World Cup was elevated from being one achievement among many to the achievement that supposedly settled the GOAT debate forever.

To many Ronaldo supporters, this is the clearest example of shifting goalposts in football history. The standards appeared to change at every stage until they aligned perfectly with Messi’s résumé. What was once irrelevant became important. What was important became essential. And once Messi achieved it, the debate was declared over.

In Qatar, Argentina received five penalties during the tournament, a World Cup record for a single team in one edition. Several refereeing decisions involving Argentina remain debated to this day, including Messi’s handball incident against the Netherlands that some believe warranted a second yellow card.

For many critics, these were not isolated incidents but part of a wider pattern they believe has followed Messi throughout his career, where controversial decisions repeatedly seem to fall in his favour. They point to numerous moments over the years where they believe punishments that would have been applied to other players were overlooked when Messi was involved. Some supporters have even argued that similar concerns resurfaced only recently, after another incident in which they believe Messi was fortunate to avoid a red card.

Whether one agrees with that view or not, it has become a significant reason why many Ronaldo supporters remain sceptical of the narrative surrounding Messi’s achievements and the way they are discussed by the football establishment and mainstream media.

For many Ronaldo supporters, the issue has never simply been about preferring one player over another. It is about what they perceive as inconsistent standards. They see achievements weighed differently depending on who accomplished them. They see one player protected from scrutiny while the other is subjected to it at every turn.

That is why many continue to side with Ronaldo. Not because to many he is the greatest to ever kick a ball or he has won every trophy or because he is beyond criticism, but because they believe the standards applied to him have often been harsher than those applied to his greatest rival.

They would rather support a player who loses with his honour intact than celebrate victories they believe are surrounded by unanswered questions.

As José Mourinho once said: “If I have to win in that way, I would be ashamed.”

For them, the issue is not simply who won. It is whether the criteria for greatness remained consistent throughout the debate. In their view, they did not.

[Bella Morris @Belorris]

It’s fine for the US to close Cuba’s and Venezuela’s waters, and it’s fine for Israel to close Gaza’s waters, but if Iran blocks the countries that waged war against it from the Strait Of Hormuz, that’s unacceptable?

[Karim Wafa-Al Hussaini @DrKarimWafa]

Block the straight of Hormuz for a week and the world goes mad but block the Rafah crossing for years, preventing the entry of food and humanitarian aid into Gaza and nobody bats an eye. It’s not hard to see that this world values markets, profit and capitalism over human lives.

[Shirin Khan @Shirink_13]

They kidnapped Maduro and assassinated Khamenei but Epstein pedophiles can sleep peacefully.

Priorities.

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

Imagine if Iran bombed Washington and killed students in schools, what would you call it? Terrorists

The U.S. and Israel bombed Tehran and killed students in schools. Why do you call it a "pre-emptive strike"?

Bombing a school is a war crime under international humanitarian law

[ADAM @AdameMedia]

They kidnapped Maduro and assassinated Khamenei before they arrested a single Epstein pedophile….

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

Donald Trump is radical Islamophobic terrorist murdering Iranian school kids for sport

[Hatim Taiyebali @EhHatla7]

@JobFound5 Interested

[Scott Horton @scotthortonshow]

Bailing out bankers, tripling the Afghan war, destroying Libya, inviting migrants, building the ISIS Caliphate then launching another Iraq war to destroy it again, murdering 300,000 Yemenis, starting the Ukraine proxy war with Russia, Mali war, paying to slaughter Palestinians.