The White House is understood to have lobbied Fifa to lift the US striker Folarin Balogun’s one-game ban for a red card received in the team’s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, resulting in Sunday’s stunning announcement that he would be available for the last-16 clash against Belgium in Seattle on Monday night.
The decision gives the US a huge boost on the field as they attempt to reach the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2002. Balogun has been a constant threat for the US so far this tournament, and has scored three goals in three starts.
Fifa has been approached for comment. US president Donald Trump thanked football’s world governing body for suspending the red card. “Thank you to Fifa for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Fifa’s disciplinary committee said it made the decision in line with Article 27 of the Fifa disciplinary code, which allows it to suspend red cards so long as the discipline is not related to match-fixing. Balogun will be on a probationary period of one year, meaning the red card technically still remains on his record. If, during that year, Balogun commits what the code refers to as “another infringement of a similar nature and gravity”, the striker will serve his one-game ban.
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Fifa previously used Article 27 to clear Cristiano Ronaldo to start the opening games of Portugal’s World Cup after his red card against the Republic of Ireland.
The Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) said in a statement that it was “astonished” at the decision. The RBFA later pointed out that the suspension of the ban ran in contradiction to Fifa statutes governing the punishment for red cards, which carry a one-game ban “automatically”. The RBFA said it was “investigating all potential options”.
A US Soccer spokesperson said on Sunday that the federation was engaged in the process that ended up clearing Balogun for the last-16 game.
US players said they received news of Balogun’s availability on the team bus on the way to training.
“Some guys are playing Clash Royale, some guys were just in the back listening to music, and then think somewhere in between that, we heard all the reports,” the defender Chris Richards said. “My family probably sent me eight tweets. I wasn’t sure, nobody told us ahead of time that this was happening.
“We weren’t quite sure if it was true or not. I think everyone knows with AI and with this and that, there can be a few question marks, but ultimately we found out through social media. It was just cool to finally get the confirmation that it was true.”
Richards said that about 10 minutes passed between the moment when the US players first started getting reports of Balogun’s availability, and getting official confirmation from a US Soccer official by the time they got off the bus for Sunday’s training session – the final one before the Belgium match.
“He’s playing it Mr Cool right now,” Richards said of Balogun’s reaction to the news. “We look to Flo to kind of lead the front line, and he’s done it really well so far throughout the tournament, so think we’re really happy and excited that that’s been overturned ... clearly they saw something in the decision that they thought deserved to be overturned.”
Richards, Christian Pulisic and Alex Freeman all said that Balogun’s suspension had slightly changed the team’s preparation or training sessions ahead of the Belgium game, and that the team had been prepared to turn out without him. – Guardian
Source: The Irish Times
