Richard Hogan: Another own goal! World Cup row shows Trump has reverse Midas touch

Everything the US president touches turns to rust, and the red card row underlines that

US president Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino, president of Fifa, at the World Cup draw.

We all know the story of King Midas. The monarch in Greek and Roman mythology celebrated for his ability to turn everything he touched into pure gold.

Of course, there is a decent moral to that story. Careful what you wish for and all that.

I have scoured the internet to see if there is an opposing king for whom everything he touches turns to rust. The anti-Midas touch, if you will. But I couldn’t find anything.

The Hollies had a song in 1967 called King Midas In Reverse. The character in the song turns everything they touch to dust instead of gold. There is a literary phrase called ‘The Minus Touch’, which describes a person who causes a decline in whatever project they are involved in.

But a decline doesn’t capture the image I’m after. I’m looking for a person or metaphor that turns everything they touch to utter crap.

The reason I’m after such an image is because of Donald Trump’s recent involvement in the World Cup.

There is nothing that man can touch that doesn’t cause the reddish-orange flaking of iron oxide, rust. He is the living embodiment of such orange flaking.

Maybe I have found my phrase; ‘The Donny Touch’. Patent pending. It’s got a certain ‘Je ne sais quoi’, as the French would say before they became a “VERY UNHELPFUL” people.

A quick stroll through the president’s business ventures and you’ll see why this guy lacks the mercurial touch: his airline venture, Trump Shuttle, bought for $365m, lost over $125m in 18 months and was surrendered to creditors; Trump Steaks closed shortly after launch due to poor sales; GoTrump.com, an online travel booking site, went out of business after one short year; Trump Mortgage, launched at the end of the boom and shut down two years later; Trump University, shut down following numerous fraud lawsuits.

I could go on and on but we haven’t even got to the juicy bits yet because there are still his corporate bankruptcies to get through: 1991 — Trump Taj Mahal; 1992 — Trump Castle; 1992 — Trump Plaza Hotel; 2004 —Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts; and 2009 — Trump Entertainment Resorts.

His CV, or resumé I should say, reads like a litany of catastrophes even Mr Bean would be embarrassed about. They are simply one failure after another.

Trump’s most recent blundering failure was his interfering with the World Cup. His lobbying of Fifa to overturn a ban on America’s star striker Folarin Balogun put his team in an impossible position: If they lost the match against Belgium, the world was against them, and if they happened to win the match, the world would most definitely hate them.

Football is the impossible dream that the playing field is the same for everyone. No politics, no wealth, no status, no colour, no religion — nothing matters except your skill when you step onto that field. In fact, it brings children from favelas, flats, and poor areas around the world to great dizzying heights.

Trump, with his greasy hand, tried to take that from all of us. He created the opposite. Hatred if they win and hatred if they lose.

Classic Donny Touch. Being a host nation normally garners you some support from neutrals but the old Donny Touch put paid to that.

Of all the outrageous, brash, and illegal things he has done, and there are many, too many to list in this column, I’m sure Trump must have been surprised with the level of condemnation, backlash, and subsequent furore his lobbying of Fifa created.

He doesn’t understand sport, as much as he protests he was once the paragon of athleticism (running quickly from the Vietnam War does not an athlete make), and it is clear he does not understand the depths of people’s affection for the sports they follow.

The president thought having a red card overturned would once again illuminate his brute power as a wannabe leader of an authoritarian regime. But not so. It just highlighted the type of corruption fans fear is already present in too many sports. And it turned the world away from the USA football team. I have never shouted for Belgium in my life. But, by god, every goal they scored was two fingers to corruption. Eight fingers in all!

The Belgium players mocked Trump in their celebrations, by doing his signature dance. The official social media accounts for the nation’s football team had two simple words after the 4-1 drubbing: ‘Overturn that’. They were buoyed by the millions of new supporters Trump had gifted them in his pathetic attempt to show power. The Donny Touch.

My cousin is American and, when the World Cup started, she said: “At last we have something to cheer about being American.” She was proud of her country’s progression through the World Cup. However, a day later, she messaged to say: “Well, that didn’t last long.”

I felt for her and the football team. Their president had once again stained their reputation.

There is always controversy around the host nation to some degree before a World Cup. Qatar certainly had its problems.

But Fifa has a major problem on its hands. As much as they want to distance themselves from the overturning of Balogun’s red card, they have serious questions to answer.

The jokes just keep writing themselves. Fifa president Gianni Infantino obviously didn’t consider the fragile ego of the braggart infant he was helping; he didn’t imagine for a moment he’d go public with their conversation about the ban.

The Donny Touch in its purest form.