A phone call lasting a few minutes rewrote the rules of a World Cup. On Sunday, FIFA announced the suspension of the suspension that would have kept Folarin Balogun, the forward of the USA selection, out of the round of 16 against Belgium, scheduled for Tuesday in Seattle. A few hours later the reason emerged: US President Donald Trump telephoned FIFA number one, Gianni Infantino, to ask for a review of the case, as reported by Axios, which cites an American official familiar with the conversation.
The red card and the automatic sanction
Balogun, the US national team’s top striker, was sent off on Wednesday during the 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina for a contact with opposing defender Tarik Muharemovic, which was judged to be a direct red card foul following a VAR review. The expulsion would have automatically resulted in a one-match ban, a sanction which by regulation does not allow for appeal. Coach Mauricio Pochettino had already defined the referee’s decision as excessive, claiming that it was a normal game contact.
FIFA’s move
In the statement published on Sunday, the FIFA Disciplinary Commission did not deny the card, because it applied article 27 of the Disciplinary Code: the disqualification formally remains standing, but the execution is suspended for a probationary period of one year. If Balogun committed a similar offense within that period, the sanction would become fully enforceable. It is not the first time that FIFA has resorted to this mechanism (it had already happened in November with Cristiano Ronaldo, suspended for an elbow foul and then put back on the field with the same article), the point concerns the application during the ongoing World Cup, with a disqualification already formalized, a more unique than rare, unprecedented case.
Belgium’s reaction
The Belgian federation didn’t take it well. In a statement picked up by NPR, the Royal Belgian Football Association said it was “stunned” by the decision. In the same statement, reproduced in full by ESPN and CBS Sports, the Belgian federation enters into the legal merits: if it is true that article 27 allows FIFA to suspend the execution of a sanction already imposed, article 66.4 of the same Disciplinary Code establishes that an expulsion automatically leads to a suspension for the following match, as was the case for every other red card in this World Cup. Belgium also recalls article 10.5 of the specific regulations of the 2026 World Cup, which provides for the automatic disqualification of the expelled player or official, with the possibility of further sanctions. For the federation, FIFA’s decision is thus in open conflict with its own rules. Even harsher was the Belgian coach Rudi Garcia, who in the press conference spoke of an off-season April Fool’s joke, adding that he was not defending his own federation but “the ethics and integrity of football”.
Towards the round of 16
The US president expressed satisfaction: “Thank you to FIFA for doing the right thing and righting a great injustice,” he wrote on Truth Social. Balogun, for now, will be regularly on the field for the round of 16 (the match between the USA and Belgium is set for Tuesday 7 July, 2:00 am Italian time), it remains to be seen whether the Belgian protest will produce consequences, or whether this too will end up archived as one of the many oddities of a World Cup that the American president has decided to make, in one way or another, also his own.
