US President Donald Trump has declared that striker Folarin Balogun's red card dismissal during the World Cup was not worthy of punishment, following a conversation with FIFA chief Gianni Infantino.
"I spoke to Gianni... I saw the play. I'm a person that loves sports and was a good athlete. I understand sports really well. Really well. That wasn't a foul. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other," Trump stated.
"He [Balogun] didn't do anything wrong. He's our best player, or one of our best players, and the referee gave him a red card. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't think it meant much.
"Then I started hearing that means he can't play in the next game - at least the next game.
Donald Trump insisted "that wasn't a foul", referring to Folarin Balogun's red card vs Bosnia and Herzegovina
|REUTERS
"If it happened to another player that would have been unfair but when they take your best player or just about - they have some great players - and they say you can't play, that is very unfair."
The 25-year-old forward received a straight red for his challenge on Bosnia-Herzegovina's Tarik Muharemovic in the Americans' 2-0 last-32 victory.
‘It opens the floodgates for anyone else who gets a red card.’
— GB News (@GBNEWS)
Former Premier League Referee Mark Halsey calls it ‘nonsense’ that US President Donald Trump has been able to overturn Folarin Balogun’s red card in the World Cup.
📺 Freeview 236, Sky 512, Virgin 604 pic.twitter.com/076OkAPCxj
CBS News confirmed the president telephoned Infantino on Thursday regarding the suspension. FIFA subsequently announced the automatic one-match ban would be deferred for twelve months, citing regulations permitting such deferrals but offering no further explanation.
"It's one thing to penalise somebody for the game, but how do you penalise them for a game that hasn't been played yet? It's very unfair, you can't do that," Trump added.
"Yes, I asked for a review by Fifa. I spoke to a man who is highly respected, who's level of respect has gone up tenfold, and he was good before this started but he really pushed it in this country. I'm the one who got them to do it [bring the World Cup to America]. It was not [Joe] Biden. I got the Olympics and I got the World Cup. We gave a little piece to Canada, a little piece to Mexico, but I got that myself.
"All I did was I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul. Again, I'm good at this stuff. I didn't think it was a foul. I thought it was two great athletes who crashed into each other and got entangled. That was not a guy punching somebody in the face or anything that would be different.
"If they wouldn't allow a top player, maybe among the best players on the team, to play, I think it would have had a big stain and I related just that feeling. I didn't tell them what to do. I can't tell them what to do.
"I don't believe he [Infantino] made the decision, I think it was a committee that made the decision, and they made the right decision because number one it wasn't a foul, and you want to see a game with your best players.
"How would you feel if you took [Lionel] Messi, or [Cristiano] Ronaldo or Harry Kane out? You can't do that.
"We gotta have our best players and Belgium's got a great team by the way. We gotta have our best and they gotta have their best. And if we win or we lose, it's fair."
European football's governing body UEFA has responded with fierce criticism, describing FIFA's intervention as "unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable."
The organisation stated that effectively cancelling a tournament suspension "crossed a red line."
UEFA emphasised that a one-match ban following a red card is mandatory rather than optional, calling it "a principle embedded in regulations."
"When the certainty of rules is no longer guaranteed by its guardians, the integrity of the game is at stake and the credibility of a competition is undermined," the governing body declared.
UEFA further warned the ruling establishes a dangerous precedent, noting that comparable incidents during the remainder of the tournament would now demand identical treatment.
Folarin Balogun is now available to face Belgium | GETTYThis would prove detrimental to the competition's fairness, the organisation added.
The Royal Belgian Football Association announced on Monday it has no choice but to contest Balogun's eligibility for the upcoming knockout fixture.
Belgium's foreign minister Maxime Prevot condemned the decision, stating: "If a phone call is really the reason for this incomprehensible decision, it would be a blatant violation of the most basic rules of football and sport."
The timing proves particularly contentious given Balogun's significance to the American squad. The striker leads the tournament's scoring charts for the co-hosts with three goals.
Trump expressed gratitude to FIFA on Sunday via Truth Social, praising the organisation for "reversing a great injustice."
The last-16 encounter between the United States and Belgium is scheduled for Tuesday at 01:00 BST.
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who departed the role in 2016 amid a corruption scandal before Infantino's appointment, weighed in on the controversy via X.
"Football must never become a playground for political power," Blatter wrote.
Glenn Micallef, the European Union's commissioner for sport, echoed these sentiments, asserting that sporting decisions "belong to sporting bodies, not politicians."
"Influencing sporting decisions would undermine the autonomy of sport," Micallef posted on X. "Our focus should instead be on the real governance challenges facing sport, including the weaponisation of sport for political purposes."
The Balogun case marks only the second instance of a player avoiding suspension following a World Cup red card. The sole previous example was Brazil's Garrincha in 1962, a decision itself surrounded by allegations of political meddling.