President Donald Trump has confirmed he asked Fifa to review United States striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s one-match suspension at the World Cup.<\/p>\n
Balogun, 25, was set to miss his side\u2019s last-16 tie against Belgium after being shown a straight red card for a foul on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic in the previous round.<\/p>\n
But Fifa made the shock decision to suspend the automatic one-match ban for 12 months \u2013 freeing the United States forward, who has scored three goals at this summer\u2019s tournament, to be selected for the match in Seattle.<\/p>\n
Trump said football\u2019s world governing body \u201cmade the right decision\u201d, adding it would have left a \u201cbig stain\u201d on the tournament had the ban been implemented.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump said he had asked Fifa to review the decision because he \u201cdidn\u2019t think it was a foul\u201d.<\/p>\n
He confirmed he had spoken to Fifa president Gianni Infantino but said \u201call\u201d he did was ask for a review and added he did not tell the Swiss he had to suspend Balogun\u2019s ban.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was two great athletes who crashed into each other and got entangled,\u201d said Trump<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it [the suspension] would have left a big stain. I can\u2019t tell them what to do. I don\u2019t believe they made the decision; I believe it was the commission that made the decision. And it was the right decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump said referee Raphael Claus\u2019 decision to send off Balogun was \u201chorrible\u201d and called the Brazilian \u201ca little bit suspect\u201d.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Monday, the Royal Belgian Football Association said it was \u201castonished\u201d by Fifa\u2019s decision to allow Balogun to be selected for the last-16 tie, which kicks off at 17:00 local time (01:00 BST on Tuesday).<\/p>\n
Asked by BBC Sport to comment on Trump\u2019s comments, his view on Claus, Belgium\u2019s claims and the appeal process, Fifa said it had \u201cnothing more\u201d to add \u201cfor now\u201d.<\/p>\n
The post Trump confirms he asked Fifa to review Balogun ban<\/a> appeared first on KBC Digital<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" President Donald Trump has confirmed he asked Fifa to review United States striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s one-match suspension at the World Cup. Balogun, 25, was set to miss his side\u2019s last-16 tie against Belgium after being shown a straight red card for a foul on Bosnia-Herzegovina defender Tarik Muharemovic in the previous round. But Fifa made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}