"Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!" That's Donald Trump, posting on Truth Social on Sunday, taking personal credit for getting America's top scorer reinstated ahead of Monday's last-16 clash with Belgium in Seattle. Folarin Balogun will play. And almost nothing about how that happened looks clean.
A source confirmed to CNN that Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino directly after Balogun's red card in the Bosnia win and asked him to review the decision. FIFA had already told the US federation there was no appeal route. Then the ban was reversed. Draw your own line between those two facts.
Was the red card even wrong?
In real time, the challenge looked innocuous. Slowed down, Balogun's foot rakes down the back of Tarik Muharemović's leg and twists the Bosnian's ankle into a position it wasn't designed to reach. The referee didn't pull the card immediately — he went to the monitor. That's exactly what VAR is there for.
Could you argue Balogun was unlucky? Yes. You see similar challenges go unpunished every week in elite European football. You could also point to Lionel Messi getting away with a near-identical challenge in Argentina's opener and wonder why the standards are being applied unevenly. But none of that is the real problem now.
The problem is that FIFA told the US team the suspension was final, then reversed it after a phone call from the White House. The disciplinary committee cited Article 27 of its code — a clause that allows a ban to be suspended under probationary terms — but offered almost no explanation beyond that. The red card technically stands. If Balogun picks up another offense, the suspension kicks back in along with further penalties. It's a fudge dressed up as due process.
This isn't even unprecedented within these finals. FIFA used the same mechanism to allow Cristiano Ronaldo to play in the group stage despite a suspension carried over from qualifying. That too triggered accusations of favoritism toward a marquee name. The pattern is becoming hard to ignore.
The Infantino factor
FIFA's relationship with Trump makes all of this worse. Infantino attended Trump's second-term inauguration and posted: "Together, we will make not only America great again, but also the entire world." He awarded Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize after Trump failed to win the Nobel version. The two are close — conspicuously, operatically close.
Infantino has always argued that a FIFA president needs cordial ties with host nation leaders. There's a logic to that. There's also a difference between cordial and compliant.
The Royal Belgian Football Association has already said the reversal contravenes FIFA regulations and prejudices fair play. Their head coach framed it in terms that went well beyond national interest: this is about defending football's integrity, he said. That's not a losing argument.
Every contentious challenge for the rest of this tournament now carries a political subtext. If Article 27 was available here, why not for any other nation's star player? What happens when a powerful government applies the same pressure in the quarterfinals? The precedent is set and it's ugly.
Balogun is the US's top scorer. His presence Monday night shifts the betting picture significantly — the Americans were already slight favorites on home soil, and having their most dangerous forward back in the lineup makes Belgium's defensive task considerably harder. But an American victory, if it comes, will carry an asterisk that no trophy can erase.
"It doesn't matter how you win. It's winning that counts" — that's essentially Trump's career-long operating principle. Whether FIFA should be running tournaments by it is a different question entirely.
