FIFA cracked the door open when it suspended Folarin Balogun's one-match ban after a call from Donald Trump. Now everybody's walking through it.
Labour MP Noah Law has written a public letter to FIFA president Gianni Infantino asking for Jarell Quansah's red card suspension to be reviewed — and he's not being subtle about the reason. He cited the Balogun situation by name. Explicitly. In writing.
Quansah was sent off in England's 3-2 win on Sunday after VAR pulled referee Alireza Faghani to the monitor for a challenge on Jesús Gallardo. No foul was called on the pitch. Faghani reviewed the replays and reached for the straight red. Sound familiar?
Law's letter makes the logic clear
"Whilst I believe that it was right for Jarell Quansah to have received this red card and that refereeing rules must be applied consistently, I believe it would be right to delay his suspension until after the completion of the World Cup," Law wrote. The internal contradiction there is doing a lot of work — he thinks the red was correct, but he still wants the punishment paused. That's not a legal argument. That's exactly what FIFA opened itself up to the moment it suspended Balogun's ban.
Thomas Tuchel, asked semi-jokingly whether Trump could intervene for England too, didn't laugh it off. "Where does it start and where does it end now? Can we overturn it or not overturn it or what?" That's not a rhetorical question anymore. It's a genuine one.
France is reportedly appealing a yellow card shown to Michael Olise during the Paraguay win. Olise isn't banned yet — one card doesn't do that — but France are clearly trying to wipe the slate clean before the Morocco quarterfinal, in case he picks up another. Smart housekeeping, legally speaking. Also a sign of the times.
FIFA's credibility problem is real
FIFA issued a statement Monday insisting Trump had nothing to do with the Balogun ruling, citing Article 27 of its sporting code and pointing to procedural issues with slow-motion replays being shown to referee Raphael Claus instead of the mandated normal-speed footage. That's a legitimate technicality — but the timeline is impossible to ignore. Trump called Infantino. Days later, the ban was suspended. The statement protesting innocence landed the same morning Trump himself confirmed the call happened.
Any odds on Quansah missing England's next match just got a lot harder to read. If FIFA caves again — whether to a British MP, political pressure, or another procedural loophole — the entire disciplinary framework at this tournament becomes decoration. Right now, every nation with Infantino's number is treating red card appeals as a political negotiation.
Tuchel put it best, even if he didn't mean to: where does it start and where does it end?
