Topline<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump spoke with FIFA president Gianni Infantino over the phone before the international soccer organization decided to suspend a red card against U.S. men\u2019s national team striker Folarin Balogun, the New York Times<\/a> reported on Sunday\u2014allowing the star goal scorer to play in the upcoming match against Belgium in the World Cup\u2019s Round of 16.<\/p>\n Trump reportedly spoke with FIFA president Gianni Infantino before the organization suspended a U.S. player’s red card.<\/p>\n Getty ImagesKey Facts<\/p>\n Balogun, the U.S. men\u2019s team\u2019s leading goal scorer, was expected to sit out Monday\u2019s World Cup match against Belgium after he received a red card during their most recent win against Bosnia and Herzegovina.<\/p>\n But in a surprise move on Sunday, FIFA\u2019s disciplinary committee said Balogun would be allowed to play as it suspended the implementation of the red card for a one-year probationary period.<\/p>\n If the U.S. striker commits another incident on the pitch \u201cof a similar nature and gravity,\u201d he will face the full suspension, FIFA said in a statement<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n Hours after the decision was announced, the Times reported Trump previously spoke with Infantino by phone and asked him to review the red card, citing three people familiar with the conversation.<\/p>\n FIFA did not return a request for comment from Forbes.<\/p>\n Tangent<\/p>\n Infantino previously awarded Trump with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize\u2014an unusual award after Trump spent months complaining about failing to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize, and Infantino\u2019s reported close relationship with the U.S. president, has brought about scrutiny from ethics watchdogs<\/a> in the European Union, including from members of the European Parliament who demanded answers<\/a> about the decision last week.<\/p>\n Key Background<\/p>\n Balogun was handed the red card<\/a> after what officials determined was a bad challenge when he dragged his cleats against Bosnian defender Tarik Muharemovic. Balogun and other commentators called the decision disappointing at the time. The U.S. men\u2019s national team heard about the decision while on the team bus to a training, The Athletic<\/a> reported, and in a separate statement<\/a> the national team said it would \u201caccept\u201d FIFA\u2019s decision. Balogun\u2019s response to the decision was simply \u201clit,\u201d defender Chris Richards told the outlet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Topline President Donald Trump spoke with FIFA president Gianni Infantino over the phone before the international soccer organization…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,12,7183,86471,7185,451,3,452,453,84938],"class_list":["post-745292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-folarin-balogun","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=745292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}