{"id":287801,"date":"2026-07-06T06:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/287801\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T06:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T06:22:16","slug":"how-us-soccer-got-folarin-baloguns-suspension-overturned-including-trumps-phone-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/287801\/","title":{"rendered":"How US Soccer got Folarin Balogun’s suspension overturned \u2014 including Trump\u2019s phone call"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEATTLE \u2014 At the end of the day \u2014 a day before the most significant match in U.S. men\u2019s soccer history \u2014 justice was served.<\/p>\n

Folarin Balogun, the dynamic U.S. striker who\u2019s scored a goal in each of the three matches he\u2019s played in this World Cup, will play against Belgium<\/a> in Monday\u2019s massive Round of 16 showdown.<\/p>\n

FIFA lifted the highly controversial one-game ban Sunday that would have prevented Balogun from playing against Belgium. He had received a straight red card for accidentally stepping on the right ankle of Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic in Wednesday\u2019s Round of 32 match.<\/p>\n

With no evidence of intent by Balogun to harm Muharemovic, and the match referee not even issuing a yellow card in real time before VAR intervened to send him off, justice was served.<\/p>\n

The Post has learned exclusively that this justice was served after U.S. Soccer threatened legal action against FIFA for incorrectly applying its video assistant referee process.<\/p>\n

\"FolarinFolarin Balogun #20 of the United States attends a training session ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 16 match at University of Washington on July 05, 2026 in Seattle, Washington. FIFA via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A source with intimate knowledge of the process told The Post on Sunday that, despite FIFA\u2019s rules that a case such as Balogun\u2019s cannot be appealed, a group that was led by U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson and COO Dan Helfrich fought the ruling based on VAR having been applied incorrectly.<\/p>\n

They immediately put this process into motion Wednesday night after the U.S. defeated Bosnia.<\/p>\n

The source said U.S. Soccer attorneys were involved as were White House attorneys, and this went as high up as President Donald Trump<\/a>, who reached out to FIFA president Gianni Infantino.<\/p>\n

Infantino told Trump it was a matter, which was already under review\u00a0by FIFA\u2019s disciplinary committee, for an independent committee. It was the disciplinary committee\u00a0that ultimately overturned the ban.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMark Cannizzaro<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMark Cannizzaro<\/p>\n

After the Balogun decision became public, Trump posted on Truth Social: \u201cThank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the source, U.S. Soccer presented to FIFA the prospect of bringing in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which acts as the supreme global judiciary for athletic disputes. CAS law is applied in sports cases that require a legal resolution.<\/p>\n

CAS gets involved in cases such as doping violations, match fixing, corruption and on-field violence, among other issues.<\/p>\n

Every match of the FIFA World Cup will air on either FOX or FOX Sports 1. If you don\u2019t have cable, you can take advantage of a DIRECTV free trial<\/a> to stream it all.<\/p>\n

Prefer to check out the action live and in person? Shop World Cup 2026 tickets on SeatGeek<\/a> and make sure to use promo code NYPOST10 for $10 off purchases over $250 at checkout if you\u2019re a first-time SeatGeek user.<\/p>\n

\u201cA legal appeal was sent to FIFA,\u2019\u2019 the source said. \u201cThey wanted to avoid CAS. The CAS legal was ready to go.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

In the end, the Balogun case never reached any legal stage as FIFA and its disciplinary committee made its ruling, because FIFA blinked \u2026 and made the correct decision.<\/p>\n

U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino, who was aware of the process to get Balogun reinstated taking place, said Sunday that he \u201cwasn\u2019t involved\u2019\u2019 in it, adding, \u201cI was focused on trying to prepare the team to face Belgium.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, the [U.S. Soccer] Federation was working really hard to defend our situation,\u2019\u2019 Pochettino said. \u201cMy reaction is like everyone who really loves the sport and trusts in the ethics and integrity [of it]. We celebrate that decision. We were punished enough against Bosnia and Herzegovina, playing with 10 men for 30 minutes [because of] a decision that was completely unfair.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"FolarinFolarin Balogun (20) fouls Bosnia\u2019s Tarik Muharemovic (4), resulting in a red card go Balogun, during the World Cup round of 32 soccer match between the United States and Bosnia in Santa Clara, Calif. AP Photo\/Jeff Chiu<\/p>\n

This ruling isn\u2019t unprecedented. In 2025, FIFA changed a three-game ban of Portugal superstar Cristiano Ronaldo, reducing it to a one-game ban.<\/p>\n

According to VAR guidelines, slow-motion replay should be used only to identify the exact point of contact on a potential foul. But in the Balogun case, officials used it to determine intent and severity, ignoring that Balogun was simply planting his foot awkwardly in mid-stride while focused on the ball.<\/p>\n

This is the premise of the case U.S. Soccer presented in trying to get the ban overturned.<\/p>\n

U.S. Soccer was notified of Balogun\u2019s reinstatement at about 9:30 a.m. here Sunday, just as players were about to board the team bus to their training session at the University of Washington.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, there was a massive bounce in the step of the players as they took the UW pitch for practice.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of us thought it was AI at first,\u2019\u2019 defender Chris Richards said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t believe it [at first]. Overall, just very happy and excited. [Balogun] strikes fear into a lot of defenders.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Striker Christian Pulisic said he was \u201cmostly excited for [Balogun] getting the opportunity\u2019\u2019 to play \u201cand just to see the smile on his face to be able to give us a boost tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the foul, there was zero intent at all. I felt like there were much worse [fouls] that went on in this tournament. I thought Balo handled it so well. You have to handle it in a good way, and good things happen to people like that. He was so positive. It just feels right.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

It was, indeed, right.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, with legal action looming, justice was served and the right decision was made.<\/p>\n

Just in time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 At the end of the day \u2014 a day before the most significant match in U.S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[153,9,11,10,400,319,431,8693,14771,33009],"class_list":["post-287801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-donald-trump","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-us-mens-national-team","tag-world-cup","tag-world-cup-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}