The storm surrounding the World Cup following FIFA’s controversial U-turn on a red card given to American striker Folarin Balogun may be unprecedented and bizarre, but experts believe it is not unexpected, given U.S. President Donald Trump’s history of intervening in non-political matters.
FIFA on Monday dismissed Belgium’s appeal against the revocation of Balogun’s suspension, calling it “inadmissible,” hours before the start of the qualifying match between the United States and Belgium in Seattle.
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Balogun received a red card for clumsily stepping on the ankle of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Tarik Muharemovic in the United States’ 2–0 victory in their round of 32 match, resulting in an automatic one-match suspension. It would have led to Balogun’s exclusion from the United States team for its round of 16 match against Belgium, until FIFA announced on Sunday that it had suspended the red card. The decision came after Trump urged FIFA chief Gianni Infantino to review the case.
While Trump’s link to Infantino is no secret, a leading sports industry expert says the controversy underscores the expansion of Trump’s influence at soccer’s world governing body.
“Trump’s MAGA [Make America Great Again] The agenda is now for the world to see, as is Infantino and FIFA’s quest for revenue,” Simon Chadwick, a professor of Afro-Eurasian sport at Emlyon Business School in Shanghai, told Al Jazeera.
“An accident has been expected for a long time.”
While Trump spoke about World Cup-related issues in the run-up to the tournament, including the participation of the Iranian team, he did not comment on soccer-related incidents once the World Cup began until Balogun’s red card.
Chadwick explained that as events unfolded, “it seemed inevitable that Trump would break his three-week silence and that Infantino would capitulate to his request.”
Infantino’s damage control on Monday only reinforced Chadwick’s analysis of the situation.
The FIFA president insisted in a statement that the judicial committees of world football’s governing body are independent and called for the suspension to be reversed.
“They operate autonomously, apply the FIFA Disciplinary Code and decide cases based on the applicable regulations and the specific facts before them,” he said, before admitting his conversation with Trump.
“Yes, I regularly discuss matters related to the FIFA World Cup with the President of the United States, and on this matter, I received a call from President Donald Trump, just as I receive calls from heads of state, government officials, soccer stakeholders, and business executives around the world on many different topics,” he said in the statement.
“During our conversation, I explained to him that there was an ongoing legal process involving the independent judicial bodies of FIFA and that the case would be decided in due course by the competent bodies. This is how the FIFA system works, and it is a principle that I will always defend,” Infantino added.
The FIFA president said that he always reads the decisions that are made and “sometimes they surprise me, sometimes I agree with them and other times I don’t agree.”
“However, what I always do is respect those decisions and the autonomy of the bodies that make them.”
Chadwick, however, argued that FIFA’s third-party interference rules flew out the window after Trump intervened.
“What has happened in the Balogun case seems highly irregular and a violation of established ethical norms,” he said.
“Apparently changing the rules mid-tournament, without consultation, under the influence of an often chaotic politician, sets a very dangerous precedent,” he added.
The decision has caused outrage against FIFA, support for Belgium and an inevitable stream of jokes from national team coaches wondering whether they too can appeal the red and yellow cards given to their players.
After England defender Jarell Quansah was sent off in his team’s 3-2 round of 16 victory over Mexico, England coach Thomas Tuchel questioned the decision.
“Who will revoke this decision then and when? And for what reasons? How far does this go now? This is strange to me,” Tuchel told reporters at the Mexico City Stadium on Sunday.
Even former FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who resigned in 2015 amid corruption allegations, joined in the criticism.
“Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls. They are overturned by rules, tests and independent bodies,” he wrote in a post on X.
“If a president of the United States intervenes before the president of FIFA – and a player is suddenly acquitted before a World Cup qualifying match – the question is inevitable: Quo vadis [where are you going]FIFA? “Football should never become a playground for political power.”
Chadwick echoed the sentiment.
“This raises all sorts of questions: What’s next? By whom? For what purposes? Benefiting whom? It appears that FIFA has overstepped its mandate and is allowing itself to be commercialized, geopoliticized and Americanized.”