Donald Trump said on Monday that he personally asked Fifa president Gianni Infantino to review the red card shown to United States striker Folarin Balogun, saying he believed the dismissal was unfair but insisting he did not pressure football’s governing body to overturn the suspension.
“All I did was ask for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I didn’t tell him what to do. I can’t tell him what to do.”
Trump’s remarks were his first public acknowledgment that he had personally intervened after Balogun was sent off in the United States’ 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last 32. Fifa had lifted the striker’s automatic one-match suspension on Sunday despite officials previously saying the sanction could not be appealed under the governing body’s disciplinary code.
Related: Unwelcome and undue: Trump’s red-card intervention hurts the US’s World Cup more than it helps | Pablo Iglesias Maurer
“All I did was ask for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I didn’t tell him what to do. I can’t tell him what to do.”
Trump’s remarks were his first public acknowledgment that he had personally intervened after Balogun was sent off in the United States’ 2-0 victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina in the last 32. Fifa had lifted the striker’s automatic one-match suspension on Sunday despite officials previously saying the sanction could not be appealed under the governing body’s disciplinary code.
Related: Unwelcome and undue: Trump’s red-card intervention hurts the US’s World Cup more than it helps | Pablo Iglesias Maurer
3 months ago
