We’ve now officially entered the U.S. is cheating! phase of the 2026 World Cup, with word that Donald Trump personally appealed to FIFA President Gianni Infantino to lobby for a reversal of the one-game suspension for USMNT star Folarin Balogun.
“Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!” Trump posted to his socials on Sunday, after the news broke that FIFA had lifted the suspension for Balogun, the leading scorer on the U.S. team in the 2026 World Cup, for a controversial red card given to the striker in the 2-0 win over Bosnia & Herzegovina on Wednesday.
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To be fair, the play that led to the red card – which comes with an automatic one-game suspension – should not have been handled the way it was on the field.
Referee Raphael Claus did not call a foul in real time on the challenge involving Balogun and defender Tarik Muharemovic, but after going to VAR, which gave Claus slo-mo and still-photo replays of the challenge, Claus did a 180, going all the way from no-call to red card.
It’s been pointed out that VAR protocols mandate reviews of plays at real-time speed, and that a real-time speed review would almost certainly not have resulted in Balogun even getting a yellow.
It’s also fair to point out, though, that FIFA did not cite the errors in the administration of the VAR review in the decision that it handed down on Sunday; had that been done, it wouldn’t look like Donald Trump called up his buddy, Gianni Infantino, who famously created a FIFA Peace Prize out of the thin air to give to Trump last year, after Trump wouldn’t stop crying about not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, and asked his partner-in-corruption to do him a solid.
“I didn’t know that at the World Cup, the 5th of July is actually the first of April, it’s April Fools’ Day,” Belgium coach Robert Garcia said at a news conference on Sunday.
Hard to argue with him there.
This obviously puts a cloud over a possible USMNT win, which would be a first in the Round of 16 for the national team since way back in 2002.
Also obviously: if it hadn’t gotten out there that Trump personally intervened with FIFA, we could easily believe that the governing body was just acknowledging the referee error.
But of course, Donald Trump can’t not take credit for something, even if it means we’d have to affix an asterisk to any success for the USMNT going forward.
The national team’s run now goes from a story that was uniting a divided nation to most of us feeling like we need a shower to get this latest Trump stink off.
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Chris Graham
