President Donald Trump has stated that he personally urged football’s global governing body to reconsider the one-game suspension handed to American forward Folarin Balogun during the World Cup.
Trump remarked that the organization reached the “correct conclusion” by lifting the sanction, noting that enforcing it would have cast a “major shadow” over the competition.
Balogun, currently the leading scorer for his national team in this World Cup, had been due to miss the round-of-16 match against Belgium in Seattle on Tuesday because of the penalty.
However, on Monday evening the federation put the automatic one-match suspension on hold for a year, clearing the 25-year-old attacker to take part.
Addressing reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump explained that he had asked the federation to re-examine the call because, in his view, “it wasn’t a foul.”
Trump acknowledged having a conversation with federation president Gianni Infantino but stressed that he merely requested a second look and did not instruct the Swiss official to overturn the sanction.
“To me it looked like two top-level competitors collided and got their legs tangled,” Trump said.
“I feel the penalty would have left an ugly mark on the event. I’m not in a position to give them orders. I assume the call came from the disciplinary panel, not from the president directly. And I think it was the proper outcome.”
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