A former Chelsea player has hit out at FIFA and Gianni Infantino for permitting Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo to play in his side\u2019s World Cup opener.<\/p>\n
During this month\u2019s international break, Ronaldo <\/a>was sent off during Portugal\u2019s 2-0 loss to the Republic of Ireland in their penultimate World Cup qualifier.<\/p>\n In normal circumstances, the Manchester United <\/a>legend\u2019s three-match ban for this offence would see him miss Portugal\u2019s last World Cup qualifier and their first two group matches at next summer\u2019s tournament.<\/p>\n However, FIFA have gone against the grain and permitted Ronaldo to feature in all of Portugal\u2019s World Cup games, which is not dodgy in the slightest\u2026<\/p>\n READ:\u00a0So-called \u2018world record\u2019 holder Cristiano Ronaldo has actually scored zero proper goals for Portugal<\/a><\/p>\n BBC Sport are reporting<\/a> that \u2018the fact it was his first red card in 226 international appearances was taken into account\u2019, while FIFA have explained how his decision could be \u201cautomatically revoked\u201d.<\/p>\n A FIFA statement said: \u201cIf Cristiano Ronaldo commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension set out in the disciplinary decision shall be deemed automatically revoked and the remaining two matches must be served immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, former Chelsea player Craig Burley has not minced his words when dissecting FIFA\u2019s decision, claiming president Infantino has \u201csold his soul for money\u201d and it is a \u201ccomplete sham\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Gianni Infantino had any shame\u2026because let\u2019s be honest, he\u2019d sell his soul for money, he\u2019s shown that with the Club World Cup and the extended World Cup,\u201d Burley told ESPN FC.<\/p>\n MUST-READ FEATURES ON F365\u2026 \u201cThey have made a mockery of their own disciplinary process, a complete sham.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat this says to refs and other professionals is, \u2018Maybe you shouldn\u2019t send off the big stars, keep it to the guys under the radar because we want these big stars at a major tournament\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen have you ever seen any player get a probation after getting sent off for violent conduct. It\u2019s a 3 game ban and that\u2019s it, you can\u2019t give someone a 3 game ban and tell them you can have 2 games off.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has made a mockery of the organisation because they are making the rules up for themselves. If that had been any other player\u2026\u2026 they\u2019d have a 3 game suspension and they would\u2019ve missed the World Cup or the first couple games of the WC.<\/p>\n \u201cBut for Cristiano Ronaldo, there\u2019s different rules and if FIFA try and tell you anything different, then they\u2019re talking absolute nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Chelsea player has hit out at FIFA and Gianni Infantino for permitting Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3204,59,86730,348,50,1671,101,56,54,55,6526],"class_list":["post-284134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cristiano-ronaldo","tag-gb","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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