The Folarin Balogun red card was garbage, but USA strong-arming FIFA was worse

Folarin Balogun never, ever should have been given a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina. The 64th-minute red card given to the USA’s star player was an utter joke, and everyone knows it. A situation that started with a bad call on the pitch turned into something entirely different as FIFA president Gianni Infantino proved, once more, what a feckless leader he is by allowing the World Cup to be blatantly interfered with by U.S. President Donald Trump.

We’re left with one of the most staggering, shameful, corrupt situations playing out in broad daylight — and it’s effectively tainted the entire World Cup as a result. It’s a case where the ends don’t justify the means, and even though the correct decision was reached, how that decision was reached is worthy of global condemnation.

If you somehow haven’t seen the initial red card, here’s the play in question which kicked this all off.

If we break this moment down into its parts there’s simply no understanding how any professional referee would see this as a red. Balogun has his hands on defender Tarik Muharemović, but his eyes are locked on the ball. There’s no way to really intuit that Muharemović was going to slow down, which initiated the contact, and Balogun’s right leg only goes behind the defender because he’s trying to play the ball.

You can watch every single game at the World Cup and see 20 incidents like this in a game. A foul is going to be called the vast majority of the time, and it’s certainly justifiable to give Balogun a yellow card as a warning to be in control of his play. The idea that this warranted a red card, typically reserved for a clearly dangerous or reckless play is simply laughable. The idea that the decision was rendered by VAR made it even worse, because now we had a room of people making the same idiotic decision. Fans had a right to be mad, commentators had a right to criticize, and the USMNT should have had the right to appeal the card, considering it resulted in Balogun being suspended in the quarter-finals.

Critically, at no point in this equation should it involve “the sitting United States President calls the President of FIFA to get the card overturned,” but that’s precisely what happened.

The USMNT was in the process of asking FIFA to have Balogun’s red card overturned, but it appeared their request would fall on deaf ears — because there isn’t a mechanism to overturn red cards during the World Cup, which was reiterated by FIFA itself. The team had said they would bring their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, though it was highly unlikely their case would be heard ahead of the USA vs. Belgium match set to take place on Monday night.

It’s here that Donald Trump injected himself into the situation, along with several other members of the federal government. They harassed FIFA president Gianni Infantino over a series of phone calls, asking him to overturn the red card, which magically happened as FIFA justified the about-face using the little-known “Article 27,” which operates as a kind of suspended sentence for red cards, deferring them for one year following an event.

The decision wasn’t based on what was fair, or right, or just — no matter how much FIFA might say it was. It happened exclusively and explicitly because President Trump asked Infantino to reverse the decision. Infantino’s sycophantic love for the sitting president was demonstrated during the World Cup draw, when Trump was awarded the inaugural “FIFA peace prize.” The award was handed out on December 5th. In the six months that followed, the United States deposed the leader of Venezuela, served as a crucial ally to Israel’s military action in the Gaza strip, which killed an estimated 75,000 civilians, and began a war with Iran, part of which involved bombing a school full of children.

Despite being made to look like a fool and finding a way to become more of a laughingstock, Infantino’s allegiance during this World Cup hasn’t been to the sanctity of the sport — but whoever wields the most power. That’s why he was willing to find an excuse to vacate Balogun’s red card and manipulate the rules in the USA’s advantage.

We reached the correct conclusion. Balogun should be playing tonight, but the means behind reversing the red card are just gross. Nobody else in the world had the same level of power to make Infantino dance like a puppet except for the USA. Nobody else in the world would expect that they could pick up the phone and get a decision reversed like this. Belgium is understandably livid that FIFA altered its rules to find a justification for Balogun to play after training for a game they expected they wouldn’t face him. Heck, even Balogun himself is certainly happy to be playing — but his joy had a distinct underpinning that he knew that the process was bullshit. Balogun said that he was taking the red card in stride, rather than complaining about it, viewing his reaction as critical to “inspiring little kids, boys and girls who are watching. To show them the correct way to handle things”.

The United States government didn’t handle things the correct way Balogun wanted. Instead of toughening up, accepting they were screwed over, and trying to play through adversity like every other country in the sport needs to do, government officials whined, exerted their power on FIFA, and got what they wanted — like a crying toddler throwing a tantrum at the park and being rewarded with extra play time.

This whole scenario underscored one thing: The beautiful game will forever be tainted by FIFA’s corruption. That existed long before the Balogun saga, and it will exist after. The shame is that whatever happens now with the USMNT, this World Cup will forever be remembered as one where the USA got to skirt the rules because of power and influence, and God help us if the U.S. beats Belgium on Monday thanks to a Balogun goal.