UEFA has expressed its “disbelief” at FIFA’s “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision to suspend USA’s Folarin Balogun’s suspension ahead of the World Cup quarter final match between the host nation and Belgium.

Reports suggest that US president Donald Trump lobbied FIFA to overturn Balogun’s red card and football’s world “governing” body capitulated. The White House’s Twitter/X feed did little to dispel such rumours.

USA-USA-USA 🦅 https://t.co/yKnJxew9tU pic.twitter.com/75KmExgrUJ

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 5, 2026

In what might be the biggest public spat between the two organisations UEFA – the governing body for Europe’s 55 football associations – today released a public statement which tore into FIFA’s decision.

The Belgian FA also made its own views known saying it was “astonished” by FIFA’s decision and arguing it went against the World Cup’s own regulations.

UEFA’s statement 

Yesterday’s decision to suspend for a probationary period of a year the implementation of the one-match automatic suspension following the red card issued to the player Folarin Balogun crossed a red line.

Football, like any other sports, relies on rules, which are the basis for fair, honest and transparent competition. Sometimes rules are open to interpretation. In this case not. A minimum automatic suspension of one match following a red card is not a discretionary option and does not require the decision of a competent body to be enacted. It is a principle embedded in regulations, which cannot be made subject to exceptions, let alone in the middle of a tournament where several other players have been in the same situation and regularly served their suspension.

When the certainty of rules is no longer guaranteed by its guardians, the integrity of the game is at stake and the credibility of a competition is undermined. Equally, such decision creates a precedent in the ongoing tournament, where similar situations will now require an equal treatment, to the detriment of the competition.

Football is the most loved sport in the world because it is a beautiful game and is trusted because it is played everywhere with the same laws. A tournament is never a pure standalone and, if the tournament in question is the World Cup, it has the power to drive positive or negative consequences on the game as a whole.

We express our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision.

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