President Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to discuss the red card given to Team USA’s Folarin Balogun during Wednesday night’s game against Bosnia and Herzegovina, an person familiar with the conversation told The Hill. Trump later cheered the reversal, calling it an “injustice.”
FIFA said its independent panel overturned the red card suspension for Monday’s game.
I mean that red card was actually total bullshit.
That part doesn’t matter. If FIFA is getting a sitting leader of one of the host country governments to interfere with the outcome, it just signals how little the United States cares about the tournament or the sport. FIFA can totally come out and reverse the ruling and tell us why. The fact that they won’t and we are hearing that Trump is involved, will make the world have more distrust. We already denied visas to the referees, players and fans from many countries who wanted to come here for the tournament. This is blatantly cheating.
If the United States team wants to save face, they need to have Balogun sit out the game tomorrow.
You really going to pretend FIFA isn’t already a corrupt clown show? That’s wild.
I am not. I already know they are.
Then why do you care about this reversal? It’s irrelevant to the integrity of FIFA. FIFA has no integrity.
Go back and reread the post where everyone is pointing out the fact that a sitting world leader called into FIFA to get a foul overturned.
Go back and read up what a shitty organization FIFA is and has been for decades and reexamine why you’re still so invested in, and giving them your money and attention.
It’s quite pathetic, actually.
I don’t watch FIFA so I don’t give a shit. I know that they’re corrupt as fuck, but that doesn’t change the fact that a government leader called in a favor to get a player suspension delayed for a game that doesn’t matter in the world cup.
Has this ever happened before? Should we let it slide and let more world leaders personally determine the outcome of any sports game?
Brother the government shouldn’t be able to have a saying or power over stuff like this, what part of that don’t you understand?
The point is that oligarchs have been manipulating FIFA for decades and this is more of the same.
How do you think Saudi Arabia got the 2034 cup?
Same with the previous one in Qatar, and Russia and pretty much all the other cups for the last few decades.
Imagine being so invested in a clownishly corrupt organization and then being surprised when they perform a clownishly corrupt action.
Stop watching FIFA games. Stop supporting them. It’s that simple. Everything else is whining.
Which is why they’re talking about how the team should handle it?
Their suggestion to how “the team should handle it” is them just whining about something being unfair. The card itself was a joke so the team absolutely should play Balogun.
If you don’t like that, stop supporting FIFA and get some actual integrity about issues instead of just being mad about the clown show you’re supporting behaving like a clown show.
And so it’s fine that a dictator manipulates a tournament then ?
The tournament itself was a clown show to begin with. Europeans absolutely delusional about the integrity of FIFA.
The card itself was absurd, and the dictator’s “manipulation” was quite small. If Belgium loses its because they’ve been playing like shit the entire contest, not because US striker’s red card that shouldn’t have been given in the first place—was overturned.
You shouldn’t be watching the tournament all if you genuinely had any principles about the integrity of FIFA / the World Cup. But you do because you’re completely fine with looking away from all their shittiness because you’re too attached to a sport.
Exactly what you said. FIFA removed Ronaldo’s 2 game suspension for no stated reason before the tournament, so this is not just Trump fixing it for the US. This is FIFA having no integrity from the beginning.
The red was very harsh. The VAR protocol was broken in giving the red. Belgium has been playing like shit.
And as incredibly sad as it has made me to miss the first World Cup in my country since I’ve been an adult, I’m boycotting it because I am not OK with looking away from their shittiness.
It had been in all the previous ones.
No, it does matter. Two things can be wrong. But it is right that the player is not punished for a baseless call or for your other unrelated grievances that have nothing to do with what happened on the field.
An outside influence that has NOTHING to do with the game calling the head of the federation is bullshit. You can’t call him to get the call over turned why the fuck does the person who won the fifa peace prize get to do it. Let the coach or the player or the team manager get the call reversed.
Exactly. Trump corrupted the process by interfering. The fact that the decision should’ve been reversed became irrelevant the moment Trump decided to call in a favor from his buddy Infantino. It’s no longer about a bad call on the field.
Shit calls get made all the time and people just live with it. The president of a shithole country should not interfere.
Ok. Now show it in video instead. It was an accident. The still frame looks bad, and it probably should have been called a yellow, but it didn’t meet the criteria for a red card.
If you think it still should be a red after all that, please explain why Messi doing the same thing on purpose wasn’t.
I agree. Messi should also have received a red. The fact that he did not even get a yellow was a terrible call.
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Now show the Messi boot in someone’s calf during this tournament, and the half dozen other worse infringements that didn’t even result in a yellow card
Read my earlier response in this thread that already agrees that Messi should have also been shown a red card for his challenge. It was more intentional than this one.
Ok, but Messi didn’t get a red card. So we just get some players with different rules than others? Seems like refs are just making it up as they go, not a good look for the sport.
100%. I suspect there was “guidance” on protecting Messi given the marketing $$ and this intervention by Trump for the host country was unacceptable for an arguable valid red card.
Lol I doubt anybody reffing for FIFA needs “guidance” on that.
It’s all bullshit. Some Academy award level acting on those fields.
i saw one player BARELY get touched, and he was on the ground writhing in pain. Like??
Imagine one of these pansies playing rugby. They wouldn’t last a day.
Was it, though? https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/871/203/356/752/532/original/53a87c3f920f27fe.jpeg
Not what experts say and more importantly not relevant.
This is know about corruption. The only honorable thing for the US to do now is forfait.
Most experts say it was very harsh and probably should not have been a Red.
I guess that’s the American fan experts then - but again, that’s irrelevant , this is not a excuse for corruption. US should forfait