Trump confirms he asked Infantino for review of Folarin Balogun red card

Donald Trump said on Monday that he personally asked Fifa president Gianni Infantino to review the red card shown to USA striker Folarin Balogun, saying he believed the dismissal was unfair but insisting he did not pressure football’s governing body to overturn the suspension.

The intervention by the president of a World Cup host nation has thrust Fifa’s disciplinary process into the spotlight and prompted an angry response from Belgium, who face the USA on Monday night for a place in the quarter-finals.
Uefa, the European game’s governing body, also issued a furious statement, accusing Fifa of crossing “a red line” by making an “incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision to rescind Balogun’s automatic one-match ban, which it claimed undermined “the integrity of the game and the credibility of the competition”.

Trump’s remarks were his first public acknowledgment that he had personally intervened after Balogun was sent off in the USA’s 2-0 victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina last Wednesday in the last 32. Fifa had suspended the striker’s automatic one-match ban on Sunday despite officials previously saying the sanction could not be appealed under the governing body’s disciplinary code.

Sources told the Guardian that Trump made three calls to Fifa beginning on Wednesday in an effort to secure the reversal.

“All I did was ask for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I didn’t tell him what to do. I can’t tell him what to do.”

Trump’s remarks marked the first time either the White House or the president had publicly confirmed the outreach to Fifa.

On Monday, Trump repeatedly said Balogun’s challenge should never have resulted in a dismissal. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “So I saw the play, and 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 wasn’t even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. You can’t take your foot and properly place it on somebody else’s foot when you’re going full speed. These were two great athletes that got tangled up.