The president of the United States, Donald Trump, confirmed this Monday that he personally called the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, to request a review of the red card that prevented Folarin Balogun from playing in the Round of 16 of the 2026 World Cup against Belgium.
Trump made the announcement during an event in the Oval Office of the White House, where he defended his intervention before the press using football-related arguments and questioned the officiating.
"One thing is to sanction someone for a match, but how can you sanction someone for a match that has not yet been played? It's very unfair. You can't do that. So yes, I requested a review from FIFA," the official stated.
Trump stated that the expulsion of the AS Monaco forward was not a foul: "That was not a foul, not even an infraction, it was two guys running at full speed colliding with each other. You can't properly place your foot on someone else's foot while you're running. No, these were two great athletes who got tangled up."
The president also questioned the Brazilian referee Raphael Claus, who issued a red card in the 64th minute of the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina after reviewing a stamp by Balogun on Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemović with VAR: "This referee is a bit questionable, if you check his past. I don't want to say that because I don't like to create controversy, but very questionable."
Trump also criticized that the VAR review was conducted in slow motion, something he claimed he was unaware was prohibited: "They say they don't show them in slow motion, and I had never realized that before. I had never heard of that before, that it's not allowed to review them in slow motion, but it's very different."
The official recognized that at first he didn't know what a red card meant or the implications of missing the next match.
Referring to Infantino, Trump praised him without directly naming him: "I spoke with a very respected man, and by the way, whose level of respect has increased tenfold. I’m the one who made it happen. It wasn’t Biden. Biden was asleep."
According to sources cited by CNN, the call between Trump and Infantino reportedly took place on July 3, two days before the FIFA Disciplinary Committee announced the suspension of the sanction based on Article 27 of its Disciplinary Code.
On Sunday, Trump had already posted on his social media platform Truth Social: "Thank you to FIFA for doing the right thing and reversing a great injustice!"
The decision allowed Balogun —the top scorer for the United States in the tournament with four goals— to play this Monday in the round of 16 match against Belgium at Lumen Field in Seattle.
The revocation of the red card, unprecedented in the 2026 World Cup, sparked an international uproar. Belgium expressed its astonishment and filed an appeal to FIFA this Monday, although the organization declared it inadmissible.
UEFA was more emphatic and issued a statement calling the decision "incomprehensible and unjustifiable," warning that "a red line has been crossed" that compromises equal treatment for all teams in the tournament.
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