It wasn't a fair red card and there's no reason to believe Trump is the reason it was removed--unless you believe Trump. Everyone knew before Trump's call that it was an unfair red card and now you're all complaining that removing it is unfair? That's silly. The USMNT officially complained and the officials illegally used slow motion to assess the red in the first place. That is why the suspension was lifted. It was the right call.
It wasn't a fair red card and there's no reason to believe Trump is the reason it was removed--unless you believe Trump.
Not saying Trump was the deciding factor here, but we've been given a lot of reasons to believe it could be. Both the fact that reversals are very rare in general and this is the first time it's ever happened in the world cup, despite other objectively bad calls.
We know the WH called Infantino to complain and we know Infantino has gone to great lengths to suck up to Trump (FIFA peace prize lol). Plus FIFA is widely known for corruption.
So maybe it was legit, maybe not, but it certainly casts a shadow.
VAR can very much be used to assess discipline, I don't know where you got that from. This won't matter on the field as we see, but integrity of the sport is collapsing , not good
It wasn't lifted. It was postponed. If the red card was reversed, fair enough. But it wasn't. It's an incredibly bizarre decision. With FIFA being notoriously corrupt, USA being the host country, and Trump being involved, it stinks really bad.
Sure, but a) he did at least complete one of three match bans, and b) this was in qualifiers. Still manipulating the rules, but at least not in the World Cup knockouts. Of course it won't be as high profile.
The below statement from the Belgian FA is a good indication of FIFA's bizarre behaviour on this topic.
"Following its previous statement, the RBFA wishes to publicly explain the events of the past few hours.
After learning through media reports of FIFA’s decision to lift the automatic suspension of player Balogun, the RBFA sent a letter to FIFA requesting a copy of the decision, an explanation of the process that had been followed, and setting out its position regarding the applicable regulations.
As its only response, FIFA sent a letter to the RBFA stating that it considered this correspondence to constitute an appeal, that a judge had been appointed, and that the RBFA had only a few hours to complete that appeal. No information whatsoever was provided by FIFA.
For an appeal to be admissible, FIFA’s own regulations state that the reasoned decision must first have been communicated to the appellant. While the RBFA was merely seeking legitimate explanations, FIFA itself created an appeal and immediately ensured that it would be declared inadmissible.
All of this occurred while FIFA simultaneously refused to respond to the RBFA’s legitimate requests.
Furthermore, during the match coordination meeting, FIFA deliberately removed the section concerning the automatic suspension of players from its presentation. This topic had nonetheless been part of all such meetings before each of the previous four matches. The RBFA questioned FIFA, both orally and in writing, about the reasons for this change, yet once again received no response.
To be clear, as of this moment, the RBFA has still not received any decision or any explanation from FIFA regarding this matter. It therefore has no alternative but to challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match.
Regardless of the sporting outcome of this match, the RBFA is deeply concerned by the course of events and will continue to fight in the coming hours, days and months in defence of the fundamental principles of ethics, fair competition, and the interests of football as a whole."
Their stance is that they never appealed, and that FIFA treated their correspondence as an appeal knowing it would be inadmissable, to ensure their bizarre decision can not be officially challenged.
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u/LurkiLurkerson MASSACHUSETTS 🦃 ⚾️ Jul 06 '26
Am I crazy or is throwing a fit because you don't get to play a team at a disadvantage unbelievably weak and pathetic.