Trump Hails FIFA As Balogun’s Red Card Is Suspended Ahead Of Belgium Clash
United States forward Folarin Balogun, a player Nigeria once courted for its own national team, has been cleared to feature in Monday’s World Cup Round of 16 tie against Belgium after football’s governing body suspended the red card that had ruled him out, a ruling that drew swift and public praise from President Donald Trump.
FIFA announced on Sunday that it had suspended the automatic match ban attached to the sending off Balogun received in the United States’ 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina. In a statement on its website, the body said: “By operation of Article 27 FDC, the implementation of the automatic match suspension for USA player Folarin Balogun is suspended for a probationary period of one [1] year.” The wording means the ban still exists on paper but will not be enforced unless Balogun commits a similar offence within the year.
Trump was quick to welcome the outcome. “Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform shortly after the decision was made public. Trump, who received the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize last year, has taken a close public interest in the tournament being co-hosted by the United States.
The sending off had become one of the more contested talking points of the knockout rounds. Balogun, the AS Monaco striker, put the United States ahead just before the interval for his third goal of the tournament before he was dismissed in the 64th minute. Brazilian referee Raphael Claus initially waved play on but was sent to the pitchside monitor by the video assistant, and replays showed the American dragging his boot down the leg and onto the ankle of Bosnia and Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic. Claus produced a straight red, and the United States saw out the remainder of the match with ten players, with Malik Tillman’s free kick sealing the win.
That dismissal carried significance beyond the scoreline. Balogun became the fifth American to be sent off at a World Cup finals, following Eric Wynalda against Czechoslovakia in 1990, Fernando Clavijo against Brazil in 1994, and both Pablo Mastroeni and Eddie Pope against Italy in 2006. He also became the first player to score and then be shown a red card in a World Cup knockout fixture since France great Zinedine Zidane was dismissed for a headbutt in the 2006 final.
United States head coach Mauricio Pochettino had left no doubt about where he stood. “For me, never is it a red card,” the Argentine told reporters after the Bosnia match. “It was a normal action in football that happened by accident. There was never any intention, and that is why, for me, it is never a red card.” Pochettino initially wondered aloud whether his side could appeal, but was informed during the same news conference that FIFA’s rules do not permit an appeal against a standard one match ban.
Under FIFA’s regulations, a direct red card ordinarily brings an automatic suspension from the following match, with no room for appeal unless the ban exceeds a single game. That closed the conventional route for the United States, whose federation had said it would only appeal if the suspension ran longer than one match. Midfielder Weston McKennie captured the mood in the camp, describing the situation as “a bit bogus” at such a decisive stage of the competition.
The decision to invoke Article 27, a seldom cited provision of FIFA’s disciplinary code, therefore came as a surprise. The article allows a judicial body to suspend the implementation of a sanction, with the penalty held in reserve during a probationary period. US Soccer accepted the ruling without complaint. “We accept the decision of the Disciplinary Committee and are pleased that Folarin Balogun is eligible to compete tomorrow,” the federation said in a statement.
The days between the offence and the reprieve were marked by pressure from senior figures in the American government. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had called for the card to be rescinded, while sports reporter Ben Jacobs reported that the White House had contacted FIFA President Gianni Infantino to review the case. FIFA sources, according to that account, indicated the approach would not sway the independent disciplinary panel. The body’s final statement rested strictly on its own code rather than on any external appeal.
For a Nigerian audience, Balogun’s story carries an added layer. Born in New York in 2001 to a British mother, he holds British, American and Nigerian citizenship, and he was the subject of a recruitment tug of war between all three nations before he committed his international future to the United States. His eligibility for the American side rests on birthright citizenship, a principle President Trump and his administration have campaigned against, lending an unmistakable irony to the president’s celebration of the ruling.
There is also a political undercurrent at home in the United States. Balogun’s mother travelled to New York while pregnant, and his citizenship flows from the very constitutional provision the administration has sought to narrow, most recently after the Supreme Court ruled against a 2025 executive order on the matter. That tension has not gone unnoticed by commentators who observed the president lauding an outcome made possible by a citizenship route he opposes.
On the pitch, the reprieve restores the United States’ leading marksman for a match of real consequence. Balogun has scored three goals in four appearances at these finals, and his availability spares Pochettino a difficult reshuffle. Had the ban stood, the coach would have turned to Ricardo Pepi, who scored nineteen goals for Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven last season, or Haji Wright, a veteran of the 2022 squad. The United States now go into the Belgium fixture in Seattle chasing a place in the quarterfinals for the first time since 2002.
Whatever unfolds on Monday, the episode has underlined how closely sport and politics have become entwined at a World Cup staged on American soil, and how a single refereeing decision can travel, within days, from a stadium review screen to the desk of a sitting president.