Yes that was the reason put forward, which is absolutely ridiculous if you think about it.

Some teams within the same group had to travel far more than others. Some played at noon in a California stadium shaped like a oven while others played later in cooler climates or in climate controlled stadiums. Some games had to be interrupted because of thunderstorms.

Yet the only measure they took for "fairness" happened to be the one that incidentally allowed them to make more money. Let's be honest for a second, a three minutes break amounts to a somewhat lengthy VAR or offside check, a slow corner kick, or an injured player getting escorted off the field.

If anything, it makes it _more_ unfair to make it mandatory everywhere. It's not an advantage, it's supposed to make up for a particularly hot/humid weather. Now your next opponent will have had the benefit of an extra 6 minutes break, without the disadvantage of having exerted themselves in a very hot weather.

Any talk of fairness when out of the window when FIFA decided to put their thumb on the scale and rescind Balogun's red card anyway.