President Donald Trump has confirmed that he called FIFA's president, Gianni Infantino, to ask him to review a red card shown to the United States forward Folarin Balogun, an intervention that preceded football's governing body suspending Balogun's automatic one-match ban and cleared him to keep playing at the World Cup. The move has set off a dispute over political influence in the sport.
The red card and the call
Balogun, one of the United States' leading scorers at the tournament, was sent off in a group-stage win over Bosnia and Herzegovina after video review determined he had caught an opponent with his boot, ESPN reported. Trump said he then phoned Infantino to ask for the decision to be looked at again. "All I did was ask for a review. I didn't say, you have to do this," he told reporters, describing the sending-off as unfair and saying the two players had simply become entangled. After FIFA acted, Trump wrote that the body had corrected "a great injustice."
What FIFA did
FIFA suspended the automatic ban that a red card normally brings, allowing Balogun to feature in the United States' next match, and said the suspension would be reimposed if he committed a similar offense within a year, the Associated Press reported. By AP's account, it was the first time in more than 60 years that a red-card suspension at a World Cup had been set aside in this way.
Backlash
The decision drew immediate criticism from European football authorities. UEFA said it "crossed a red line" and called the move "unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable," Al Jazeera reported, while Belgium's federation said it was astonished and would look at its options. Norway's coach, Ståle Solbakken, called it a mistake and asked what would happen with "the next red card." Others, including the former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, questioned what it meant for the game's integrity if a phone call from a head of state could clear a player.
The other side
US Soccer and the United States coach, Mauricio Pochettino, welcomed Balogun's availability while distancing themselves from any lobbying; Pochettino said politics and football should not be mixed. Trump, for his part, maintained the original decision was simply wrong. FIFA has defended acting under a provision of its disciplinary code that allows a sanction to be suspended, but has said little to answer the central criticism: that, whatever the rulebook allows, reversing a red card after a presidential phone call sets a precedent other teams and players will remember.
