It was of course inevitable that a World Cup hosted by the U.S. while FIFA’s first and only peace prize winner Donald Trump is president would involve some precedent-shattering political intervention which outraged the world, and now it’s happened. Over the weekend, FIFA rescinded the automatic suspension of the USMNT’s top scoring player, striker Folarin Balogun, following a pressure campaign by the White House and Trump — who personally spoke with FIFA president Gianni Infantino about the matter. Balogun received a controversial red card, following a VAR review, during America’s Round-of-32 victory against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and was thus supposed to be automatically barred from playing in the next game in the tournament. FIFA swears the extraordinary reversal wasn’t politically influenced, but everyone else is far from convinced. The move has not only called into question the legitimacy of the U.S. team, but the integrity of this year’s tournament and (once again) of FIFA, itself. Here’s what we know, along with updates, commentary, analysis amid the fallout ahead of tonight’s big game against Belgium.
Surprising no one, Trump indicated that if Belgium had went on to beat the U.S with the red card standing, he would’ve said the outcome was rigged as he falsely did for the 2020 election:
