Balogun suspension lifted—will be eligible vs Belgium

Its very weird.

In theory there's an 18 person judicial committee.

in practice, one person, has made what looks like the last 110 decisions.
Mohammad Al Kamali of the UAE seems to have the right to decide or delegate on these matters.

Al Kamali's relationship with the Trump family is currently being scrutinized.

 

Yup Infantino is bad and corrupt and should be removed. But the way FIFA is structured whoever would replace him would also be bad and corrupt and that’s the issue we need to solve for. Cause it’s about the institution and not just the man and that’s a much harder problem to fix.

 

Probably true. Which also means that fans’ real outrage is specific to their team, not to abstract ethical principles. Belgian fans cared when there was a chance it would hurt their team. Now? My hunch is that they feel a little smug about beating the US despite FIFA’s intervention but don’t care otherwise.

UEFA execs will pretend to care about the sanctity of the game as long as they think that pretense benefits UEFA or them personally. But if they actually cared about ethical principles or competitive integrity, they would have made some noise when FIFA used Rule 27 to let Ronaldo play the first two group games.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with caring about ethical principles. I wish more people in power did. Or that more people did, period. I just think it’s, ah, optimistic to insist that when it comes to Balogun’s red card, people’s ethical standards will make them get so angry at FIFA that big reforms will be required. Because FIFA has instigated, encouraged, or countenanced way more ethically problematic behavior without any consequential backlash.

Could this red card be the reason the camel calls its chiropractor? I suppose. But I’m not betting on it.

 

It's one of the fundamental issues with "non-profit" organizations in what have become profitable spaces. Unlike a for profit company, there's no competition outside and no clear ownership model, stakeholder division, etc. No clear obligations. Unlike an actual charity, there's shitloads of money to be made and embezzled and it's not staffed by self-sacrificing people all that interested in the cause.

You know, like current politics.

 

Hell, I would take the self serving aspect of it if any person or organization was using their outrage to petition for an institutional fix. Which would be formalizing a transparent and equitable appeals process.

But not a one. Not our ridiculous Belgian poster. Not UEFA itself.

They want to criticize Americans or they want to attack Infantino. They do not want to solve the problem.

 

Is this the first time someone has looked up the judicial committee and looked at the rulings? It took THIS red card? Not ONE of the other 109 decisions?

I find that hard to believe. There must be contentious decisions in there, and there must've been questions asked before about other decisions...

 

As I remember some Swiss politician once put it for American television (was it 60 Minutes back during the fallout of the Jack Warner scandal?), as far as Swiss law is concerned, FIFA essentially operates as a local yodeling club.

Who, exactly, who has their hands in that would ever want to clean that up?

 

ChatGPT why do the kids keep saying "ETTD"?

Folarin Balogun on the controversial overturning of his red card: "I knew it was going to cause a lot of controversy. I could almost see some nerves within my teammates. The closer we got to the game, I tried to focus, but it was difficult. The outside noise was hard to avoid."

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7444835/2026/07/14/folarin-balogun-ban-overturn-trump-usmnt/

We are just going to let this cook! 🍊=💩🤡 pic.twitter.com/UCc18oAqbf

— john mckennie (@airborne69) July 15, 2026

JOHN OLIVER: “IT WAS A VERY EFFECTIVE WAY TO TURN THE ENTIRE WORLD AGAINST THE USMNT, JUSTIFIABLY” 👀🇺🇸

John weighs in on the Balogun red card debacle 🟥 pic.twitter.com/5VwxveYbRw

— Men in Blazers (@MenInBlazers) July 16, 2026

 

It's remarkable that this thread has 60 pages. It's a simple case of corruption in my mind. Trump puts pressure on Infantino who tells al-Kamali to reverse a reasonable red card. It changed the dynamic of our match with Belgium. They were fcking pissed and ready to avenge and we looked totally shell shocked. Everything Trump touches dies and Infantino is a cartoonish suckass.

 

They say a picture is worth a 1,000 words.



Two of my thousand were "sliding in." I meant flying in. I made a quick post and misstated something inadvertently, but everyone and their grandmother has seen the play and it's clear as day this was a red.

Balogun showed complete disregard for what he was doing. He was paying no mind or attention to any possible miscalculation on his part.

Whether he intended to hurt his opponent or not is immaterial. It was reckless and dangerous. That is malicious in and of itself. If his intention was to make a clean, proper challenge, even if he didn't win the ball, then he wouldn't go flying in like that.

You can very well argue that the rules should be changed or interpreted more flexibly. Likewise, you could argue that FIFA need a better system to correct bad calls on the field. These are all valid and fair arguments, but that's as far as any of these argument on it can go.

This was unmistakably a red. And you all know he could very well have broken his ankle. I don't think anyone says it's not a red when the ankle is broken. Well, did Balogun's intent change in that event? Was his challenge any more reckless or dangerous? You need a broken ankle to understand it's a red?

I'm disappointed in a lot of pundits who suggested otherwise. I wonder how they would react if it was their kid that had their ankle twisted like that by some other kid just throwing himself at him/herself in. But good on them for saying it isn't. Now they might actually experience it when some kid thinks he should go flying in like Balogun.

 

He's also not flying in.

This picture is exactly what VAR protocol says not to use stills or slo mo for intensity and only to establish point of contact.

"I'm mad highly trained professionals said the accurate thing according to their jobs instead of the thing that allows me to rage my feelings and/or talk shit."

Former pro referees say you are wrong because you are wrong.

Gosh, maybe this would make sense if Balogun "just threw himself" at the other player instead of what actually happened. I'm not sure why we're talking about kids here, either, but okay.

The video is easy to find and none of that happened. Which means, I assume you're just a troll or a liar.

I'd rather my kid have someone "throw themselves at them" than be a weirdo who trolls and lies on the internet.

 

@owian

A US Soccer VP speaks out, but not officially the stance of US Soccer. I doubt we see an official US Soccer stance like this because of the likely consequences.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...infantino-donald-trump-fifa-world-cup-comment

 

1. A picture is not worth 1000 words.
2. Video images matter. But they undermine your case so you won’t use them.

In real life, people would make you answer the question, why are you relying on a still image? Here, you can just insist and ignore.

 

My viewpoint …

Still photo - obvious red (stomp)
Short video - maybe red (control yourself)
Full video - not red (tangled)

Certainly a strong argument to provide the referee with a few extra seconds of video to get the full context.

Would make a challenging question on a referee’s assessment … How would you rule?

 

Now that the tournament is over all we need is for FIFA to be safely away from the US, for the phony US futbol mills to go back on their 4 year hibernation and then wait.. the facts will come out and fans will be even more grateful the USMNT got eliminates as soon as the meddling started

As a bonus Zlatan is done with Fox as well.. we shall see what candid things he has to say of the experience

 

Too bad. I'm not a big fan of Zlatan, but he was better than Lalas. Lalas should have retired, instead.

 

Thanks for flagging this for me. He says everything I would want US Soccer to say, and glad he did, even if he was only speaking for himself.

Like you I don't think we'll see anything official though. The guys with the money are never going to say anything bad about Trump. But will be interested to see if we get more individual statements on or off the record.

 

I think for a segment of fans sure. Belgian has casual world cup fans just like the US. A ton of their fans were just there for the party and it's a lot more fun when Belgian wins. And if you think the other side is cheating than it's even more satisfying. I 100% agree that there are Belgian fans like that.

But there are also a ton of fans in Europe, and all over the world, who are genuinely concerned about the games integrity. They would rather watch their team lose in a real competition, then win in a rigged one. Because at the end of the day they love the sport, and want to be able to watch it in 10-20 years believing that it's a real competition not a cross between the UN and WWE.

Don't know and if I were betting I'd say no like you. But that's also what I said after Blatter opened up the envelope announcing Qatar and it turned out he didn't survive that one.

But there is momentum in Europe to make this the hill to die on. Trump is probably the only person more unpopular than Infantino so they probably aren't going to get a better chance. And it was so brazen, not even a fig leaf of an explanation. Ceferin skipped the final yesterday in protest so looks like this will keep going.

 

UEFA President Ceferin skipped the final to protest FIFA actions, specifically the Balogun decision.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cr59mg77ep2o

 

Before we get too excited about UEFA’s commitment to protecting the integrity of the game, it’s worth remembering (1) UEFA didn’t protest when FIFA used the same rule to allow UEFA star Ronaldo to play the first two games of the same World Cup and (2) Infantino was a high-ranking UEFA official who ran against Blatter as an anti-corruption candidate.

FIFA does need a thorough house cleaning. But all the rags are dirty.

 

I think Uefa is the cleanest of a rather dirty lot. Infantino stands for Uefa the way Trump stands for the USA, so us Yanks can't exactly throw too many "corruption" stones around.

 

It wasn't a challenge.

Both players were heads up going for a ball. This is how Balogun landed. He wasn't "challenging" someone with possession, he wasn't flying in. It was two players attacking the same ball in the air.

Don't be obtuse

 

I’m not interested in relative degrees of fault. I’m just trying to remind people—mostly myself—that the last big public push from UEFA to clean up FIFA was led by the guy UEFA is now making a big public push to clean up. I’m not optimistic, I suppose.

 

I'll accept that but the ref saw it in real time and COULD have given yellow for carelessness. He didn't. I think everyone (almost) could have accepted yellow.