{"id":533,"date":"2026-07-06T15:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=533"},"modified":"2026-07-06T15:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T15:12:15","slug":"trump-defends-balogun-red-card-review-call-for-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=533","title":{"rendered":"Trump defends Balogun red card review call for World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Donald Trump<\/a> on Monday defended making a phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, which led to the soccer association controversially overturning a one-game World Cup suspension of U.S. Men’s National Team striker Folarin Balogun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump said, referring to a referee issuing Balogun a red card in his team’s victory last week over Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know what the hell a red card was,” Trump told reporters at the White House<\/a> for an Oval Office event promoting the launch of Trump Accounts<\/a>, an investment vehicle for children.<\/p>\n

The card led to Balogun being ejected from that match \u2014 and to the 25-year-old being barred from playing in the U.S.’s game on Monday night against Belgium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Folarin Balogun #20 of the United States fouls Tarik Muharemovic #4 of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is later reviewed by VAR and awarded as a red card foul a during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 32 match between USA and Bosnia and Herzegovina at San Francisco Bay Area Stadium on July 01, 2026 in Santa Clara, California. <\/p>\n

Michael Steele | Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But FIFA on Sunday suspended the ban, allowing Balogun to play in Monday night’s knockout match against Belgium in Seattle.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t tell him what to do. I can’t tell him what to do,” Trump said of his call to Infantino. “And I don’t believe he made the decision.”<\/p>\n

The president said that if Balogun’s suspension had been upheld for the match against Belgium, “This game would have a big mark on it, if we lost or if we won.”<\/p>\n

“If they beat us, then they could be really proud,” Trump said of the Belgian squad.<\/p>\n

This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most trusted name in business news.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump on Monday defended making a phone call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino, which led to the soccer association controversially overturning a one-game World Cup suspension of U.S. Men’s National Team striker Folarin Balogun. “I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump said, referring to a referee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":534,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/108330842-1783347492957-gettyimages-2284331616-AFP_B9E248Q.jpeg?v=1783347518&w=1920&h=1080","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1135,1119,1136,41,806,663,515,289,40],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news","tag-balogun","tag-call","tag-card","tag-cup","tag-defends","tag-red","tag-review","tag-trump","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}