The United States striker Folarin Balogun has revealed he predicted Donald Trump’s involvement in overturning his World Cup suspension would “cause a lot of controversy”, as a human rights group lodged a complaint against the Fifa president over the affair.
Balogun, 25, was sent off for serious foul play against Bosnia-Herzegovina in the last 32 and should have received an automatic one-match ban. But Fifa’s disciplinary committee suspended the suspension for a year, allowing the Monaco forward to play in the Americans’ 4-1 last-16 defeat by Belgium — a decision that prompted widespread condemnation, particularly after it emerged Trump and White House officials had lobbied football’s world governing body.
“Balogun knew Trump's intervention to lift his ban would cause 'controversy' and nerves in the squad.”
Balogun found out he would be available while on the team bus. “Everyone was screaming and shouting,” he told CBS. “It was a pretty intense bus ride to the practice field.”
But he also sensed unease among his team-mates. “When I started to reflect, I knew it was going to start a lot of controversy and I could almost see within my team-mates a bit of nerves because it is something that is so unique,” Balogun said. “The closer we got to the game, I focused the best I could but it was difficult. A lot of outside noise, and that’s hard to avoid.”
European football’s governing body Uefa called the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable”. On Tuesday, the human rights nonprofit FairSquare submitted a complaint to the International Olympic Committee alleging Fifa president Gianni Infantino breached rules on political neutrality in his dealings with Trump, who admitted he personally intervened on behalf of Balogun and the US co-hosts.
The Times reported that disciplinary committee chair Mohammad Al Kamali made the key decision to suspend the ban alone, having never been the sole arbiter in any published previous disciplinary cases. Fifa has offered no explanation of why the ban was suspended.
Balogun, who scored three goals at the World Cup, still insists his red card for a tackle on Tarik Muharemovic was not correct. “I was in shock. It wasn’t even a tackle,” he said. “When something’s not intentional it should never be a red card, so it was just an unfortunate situation, and I think it put a lot more pressure on us than we needed.”
Despite the defeat, Balogun does not feel the controversy distracted Mauricio Pochettino’s side. “It was about separating the emotion from the job at hand. We are all professionals,” he added. The complaint to the IOC now adds a fresh layer of scrutiny to Infantino’s handling of the affair, with the question of political neutrality unresolved.
