Yes, the Commander-in-Chief got directly involved in the effort to overturn the suspension of U.S. striker Flo Balogun.
On Monday, President Trump admitted that he contacted FIFA in an effort to get Balogun back on the pitch for tonight’s Round of 16 game against Belgium.
Obviously, it’s not known what was said. What, if any, promises may have been made. Or what, if any, express or implied threats may have been made.
Whatever he said, it worked. FIFA exercised its broad discretion under Article 27 of the Disciplinary Code to wipe out what otherwise would have been an automatic one-game suspension for Balogun.
From videos posted by Aaron Rupar on Twitter, here’s some of what the president had to say on Monday at the White House.
“So I saw the play, and I’m a person that loves sports, was a good athlete,” Trump said. “And I understand sports really well. Really well. And that wasn’t a foul. That wasn’t even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other, OK? You can’t take your foot and properly, place it on somebody else’s foot, when you’re going — no, these were two great athletes that got tangled up. And this referee, who is a little bit suspect. . . . If you check his past. I don’t want to say that because I don’t like to create controversy. But very suspect. If you’d like, I’ll provide you with the past. He made a call that nobody could believe. You know, even people on the other side, they said, ‘Oh, we got lucky. Wow.’
“And it’s very interesting. They say they don’t show them in slow motion. And I never realized that. I never heard of that before. That they’re not allowed to review in slow motion, because it’s so different, because you’ll take one little quarter of a second, and you’ll see that a hand is touching a neck or you see something. Whereas when you see it in fast motion, it will look like two guys collided, which is really what happened.
“They got sort of entangled. He didn’t do anything wrong, and he’s our best player or one of our best players. . . . And you gave him a red card. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t think it meant much. Then I started hearing that that means he can’t play in the next game, at least. Then they escape. I said, ‘Boy, that’s a big’ — you know, if happened to another player it would have been unfair, but when they take your best play or just about, they have some great players, but — and they say you can’t play. That’s very unfair. That’s, you know, it’s one thing to penalize somebody for the game. But how do you penalize them for a game that hasn’t been played yet? It’s very unfair. You can’t do that.
“So, yes, I asked for a review by FIFA. I spoke to a man who is highly respected and, by the way, whose level of respect has gone up tenfold, and he was good before this started. But, you know, he really pushed it in this country. I’m the one that got them to do it. It was not Biden. Biden was asleep. I got them to do it. In fact, it was very sad because I got them to do it, and if the progression was normal, I would have been retired. Now, the Democrats are saying, ‘Man, we should have just let him have his way, he would have. We would have had him gone.’ But I said, you know, the saddest thing is I got the Olympics, and I got the World Cup. . . .
“All I did, I asked for a review, because I didn’t think it was a foul. And, you know, again, I’m good at this stuff. I didn’t think it was a foul. I thought it was two great athletes that crashed into each other and got entangled. That was not a — that was not a guy punching somebody in the face or anything that, you know, would be different. And I think it’s, I think it’s a terrible, if they wouldn’t allow, you know, a top player, maybe the best, maybe among the best players on the team, to play I think it would have had a big stain, and I related just that feeling.
“I didn’t tell them what to do. I can’t tell him what to do, but — and I don’t believe he made the decision. I think it was a committee that made the decision, and they made the right decision, because, number one, it wasn’t a foul. And you want to see a game with your best players. You don’t want to say, ‘How would you feel if I took, you know, we take, [Lionel] Messi out, with, you know, he ran into somebody. Or we took [Cristiano] Ronaldo. Ronaldo, he bumped into somebody, we’re gonna take you out of a game. He’s great. Or Harry Kane. Harry Kane, we’re gonna take you out of the game, Harry, because you happen to hit somebody a little bit harder than — you can’t, you can’t do that. If you would have taken him out, I think — I think it would have really stained this incredible champ[ionship].
“We got to have our best players, and they’ve got — Belgium’s got a great team, by the way. We are our best players. And they have to have their best. And if we win or we lose, it’s fair. Otherwise, let’s say we lost him and we lose the game. It would be a terrible thing. So, I think they made a really brilliant decision. I think the referee’s call was horrible. And nobody talks about that. They talk about the red card like it’s fine. Nobody talks — the referee’s decision to red card. I didn’t know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, ‘You gotta be kidding.’ This guy just hands up, ‘OK, your best player is not gonna play next week, or in the next game.’ I said, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of power. That’s terrible.’ But then I looked at his past, and it wasn’t so great. . . .
“No matter what happened, you have to let them use their best players. And the game tonight’s gonna be amazing, and we’re gonna have a full team, and Belgium’s gonna have a full team. And you know what? If they beat us, then they can be really proud. The other way, if they beat us, we’ll say it was — I say it was rigged, just like the election was rigged in 2020, but I won’t get into that.”
While the ultimate outcome may reflect a broader sense of justice, the reality is that the suspension only went away because the U.S. government put the squeeze on FIFA. And FIFA then found a way to navigate its rules to give Trump what he wanted.
If we were playing the World Cup in Russia and Russia’s best player was suspended for the game and Vladimir Putin called FIFA and persuaded FIFA to suspend the suspension, we’d be very pissed — even if we sensed the red card probably shouldn’t have been given in the first place.
Right is right. Wrong is wrong. Right or wrong, Trump wanted something. He identified the right pressure point, and he pressed. And he used his power and influence to get what he wanted. Again.
The only risk is this. Belgium’s anger could manifest itself in more spirited play tonight. Just like the U.S. team did when it hunkered down and overcame being shorthanded by a player due to the red card that was viewed to be unjust.
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