President Donald Trump got involved in a World Cup red card dispute, and the result was one of the wildest administrative reversals you’ll see in international soccer. But according to Trump, it wasn’t pressure. It was just a request.
The situation started when USMNT striker Folarin Balogun got a straight red card in the knockout stage, which triggered an automatic one-game suspension. That put him out of the historic Round of 16 matchup against Belgium. The USMNT’s offense without its top scorer? Not great. So Trump did what Trump does — he picked up the phone.
According to a report from The Guardian, the President contacted FIFA three times and spoke directly to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. A U.S. official confirmed to NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba that the White House wanted to understand the refereeing decision better. The American government even supplied extra evidence to help the appeal. That’s not normal. That’s the President of the United States calling the head of world soccer about a red card.
Trump explains his side
At a White House press briefing, Trump addressed the backlash over political interference in a soccer match. He made it clear he wasn’t demanding anything.
“All I did was ask for a review. I didn’t say you have to do this,” Trump said, according to ESPN’s coverage of the event.
He called Infantino a “smart, tough man” and admitted he didn’t really understand how serious a red card was at first. But once he learned that Balogun would miss the biggest game of the tournament, Trump said he felt like he had to step in. He called the VAR decision “horrible” and “very unfair,” arguing that slow-motion replays made a routine collision look worse than it was. He even called the match official “a little bit suspect.”
FIFA didn’t overturn the red card. Instead, they used Article 27 of their Disciplinary Code, which froze the suspension for a one-year probationary period. That meant Balogun was eligible to play in Seattle. So effectively, the ban vanished for now.
Trump took to Truth Social afterward to celebrate the outcome. He called it a “great injustice” being reversed and thanked FIFA for doing the right thing. Then he signed off with his name in all caps: DONALD J. TRUMP.
Whatever you call it — a request, a review, an intervention — it worked. And now the USMNT gets its best attacker back for a knockout game that could define a generation. Whether that’s fair to the other 31 teams in the tournament is a question nobody in the White House is asking.
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