One call does it all. This is so incredibly rude and tasteless. It doesn’t matter which team you play for. Like any sport, there are these things called penalties. Everyone knows about them. Everyone knows how you get hit with one. If you get busted for one, it’s your own damn fault. You screw up, you pay the price, and you have no one to blame except yourself. Now add in Trump, and you can already see how this is going downhill. Regards to Raw Story:
President Donald Trump reportedly intervened in the FIFA World Cup on behalf of Team USA in a way that had political analysts and sports fans holding their sides. Team USA is scheduled to play in a high-stakes match against Belgium tonight, one where the Americans could advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2002. Initially, it appeared that the U.S. would be without one of its stars, Folarin Balogun, after he received a red card in the team’s last match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. Red cards carry an automatic one-game suspension.
You take your chances. He got caught on something. He has a penalty. It seems that some bit of news showed up about him, and he was going to do exactly what he was supposed to, which is sit out the game. If the team made it further, they did. Here’s a quick bit of information about it.
Referees issue red cards for severe infractions. These generally fall into two categories 1. Serious Foul Play and Violent Conduct [1, 2] 2. Denying an Obvious Goal-Scoring Opportunity 3. Accumulation of Yellow Cards [1] From there, here are the actions if a red card is shown to a player/team. Ejection, No Replacement (team plays with 10 people instead of 11), and Automatic Suspension, meaning they sit out the next match. It’s that last one we are discussing here.
On Sunday, Ben Jacobs, senior football correspondent for GiveMeSport, reported that FIFA decided to overturn Balogun’s suspension after the Trump White House “made a direct call” to FIFA and asked president Gianni Infantino to look at the case. Yes, that’s the same Infantino who previously awarded Trump the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December 2025 for “promoting a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.” After it was announced that Balogun would be allowed to play on Sunday, Trump thanked FIFA for “doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice” in a post on Truth Social.
There is the problem. The leader of the primary country hosting the tournament called the organization to ask the president of FIFA to, essentially, turn over a serious penalty so the player could be in the next game. FIFA is notoriously corrupt anyhow, but this with Trump just blows my tiny little mind. This is ridiculous. This is embarrassing. This is .,.. words fail me. You don’t go doing things like this! It’s insulting to the other teams in the tournament. Well, I think so.
Onlookers reacted to the report on social media, with some pointing out a striking irony in the story. “Possible corruption and cheating aside, hilarious that the Trump administration [was] allegedly pushing hard to reinstate a player who is a literal birthright citizen,” Mehdi Hasan, founder of Zeteo News, posted on X. “His pregnant mother gave birth to him on a visit because the airline wouldn’t let her board her return flight.”
“Under FIFA rules, the US should now be suspended from competition. Of course, this won’t happen,” Alonso Gurmendi, a fellow in human rights at LSE Sociology, wrote in a social media post on X. “As a fan, I am obviously overjoyed that Balogun will get to play and that this injustice was corrected,” Tommy Vietor, co-host of “Pod Save America,” posted on X. “But man, does this look awful for FIFA, and it will make the rest of the world feel like the tournament was rigged.”
We know all about the corruption, cheating via phone call, and “RIGGED”. We definitely remember rigged. It’s one of Trump’s favorite words. Well, this whole business may have been for naught. Just checked the score and Belgium is leading us 3 to 1. We will be even more humiliated if we lose. Once again, Trump should have kept his yap shut. Whatever is going to happen, will happen. Kinda wish we were in the lead, though.
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