‘We wuz robbed’ is the song the whole world sings. But being robbed is all part of the glory of sport

July 10, 2026 — 1:30pm

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We wuz all robbed. From Queensland to Cairo to the court of the mad American king, there is a global pandemic of grievance. Is there anyone left who wuzn’t robbed?

Since losing State of Origin, Queenslanders have directed their ire at bunker official Chris Butler for allowing Bradman Best’s game-breaking try.

Complaint from Queensland is only to be expected, but the whole world is now Queensland. After being knocked out of the World Cup, Egypt joined the line-up of eliminated teams who blamed their losses on referees.

The World Cup being the World Cup, there is a long-running conspiracy theory that FIFA wants to engineer a farewell win for the game’s most marketable face, Lionel Messi.

The Egypt result is taken as further proof. But that is only an extreme case. Routinely, countries leaving the World Cup have done so under protest.

FIFA boss Gianni Infantino already had his hands full dealing with referee Donald Trump, a man with great expertise in all sports (just ask him), who decided that America’s Folarin Balogun had not committed a foul against Bosnia and Herzegovina and therefore should be available for the US’s next match against Belgium.

The big baby got his way but, as has been noted elsewhere, karma was the winner when the US lost to Belgium in the round of 16.

“We was robbed” is the song the whole world sings.

Complaint is fiercer than ever and has more outlets, attracts more eyeballs and is globally commodified. There is big money in........

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