Three times reporters asked US Soccer CEO JT Batson whether the federation regretted Donald Trump's intervention in Folarin Balogun's red card saga. Three times he didn't answer. The third time, he ended the press conference early.
"We're done, we gotta go. I'm sorry," Batson told the room, cutting the media roundtable short of its agreed hour.
That's about as loud as silence gets.
What actually happened with Balogun
Balogun was red-carded in the last-32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina after inadvertently stepping on an opponent's ankle. A one-match ban followed. Trump then made multiple calls to FIFA president Gianni Infantino, lobbying for a review — a move he announced publicly himself before the US faced Belgium in the round of 16. FIFA suspended the ban, insisted Trump's calls had nothing to do with it, and almost nobody believed them.
Most observers agreed the original red card was harsh. That part isn't really the controversy. The controversy is a sitting US president calling the sport's governing body to get a ruling reversed — and the governing body folding, then denying it folded.
Balogun handled the whole thing with more grace than the situation deserved. "I could almost see within my teammates a bit of nerves because it was something so unique," he told CBS. "But the closer we got to the game, I tried to just focus as best as I could."
None of it mattered in the end
The US lost 4-1 to Belgium. Balogun played. The diplomatic firestorm burned for a week, bent FIFA's process out of shape, and produced exactly nothing on the scoreboard. There's a reasonable argument the circus was a net negative — a distraction dressed up as advocacy.
Batson's answer to the whole affair? "The president is able to do what the president wants to do. The president is the president of the United States." He then pivoted to fan support and "dividends moving forward" — boilerplate so thin you could read through it.
US Soccer wanted the ban lifted. They got it. Now they don't want to own what it took to get there. The press conference ending early pretty much says everything Batson refused to.
