Why we all believed in 23 million people
During the World Cup, a petition demanding Argentina be banned from future tournaments claimed 23,316,108 signatures. The number ran everywhere:
Euronews reported the figure down to the last digit
The Spun reported it, linking to the petition site itself
Men's Journal called the numbers staggering, linking to the site as well
Yahoo Sports and AOL republished those two pieces without checking either
Football writers repeated it. Supporters shared it. We believed it too.
It was fake.
The site appeared days before it went viral. The operators have never identified themselves. There was no way to sign anything. The counter ticked up on its own, by code. X attached a note to the accounts promoting it: the site does not collect actual signatures from users. The site's own disclaimer now admits the counter was simulated and the whole thing was parody. It closed at 23 million and change, and behind that figure stood nobody at all.
Here is the part worth sitting with. The number sailed through every check because it did not need checking. Twenty three million people angry enough at FIFA to demand something as unserious as banning a country did not read as far-fetched. If anything, it sounded like an undercount.
That feeling is real. The distrust is real. The disappointment is real. FIFA has earned it over the past month, the past year, the ten years of Infantino, the seventeen of Blatter before him. So many problems, so many open questions, so many conspiracy theories that almost any claim about FIFA sounds plausible now.
If this incident showed one thing, it is that FIFA is in desperate need of reforming. A broken institution that does not serve its supporters. And supporters who do not trust it are done being disappointed by it, and will reach for any sign of change they can find.
That is why we are building an organised, well-armed community of supporters that can pressure FIFA to truly change.
Join us and Reclaim the Game.
