I was deadass joking with a coworker that Trump would be the kind of person to call FIFA and bitch about a red card, but neither of us thought he would actually do it. I should know by now.
this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2026
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If there was a world championship of corruption, FIFA and Trump would be top contenders, together with the IOC.
I cannot wait for this absolute piece of human garbage to die.
$
Just fucking die already
The real irony, which I'm sure is lost on Trump, is that Balogun is only able to play for the US due to his birthright citizenship, something the Trump administration is actively trying to get rid of.
Balogun played for England until 2023.
Yeah, but he has "gun" in his name, so he's definitely American. /s
I really hope this will be a nail in the coffin of FIFA
I doubt it. All the big clubs profit from it and seem to be doing well with all the money they pay players and management. A new football association would not have the sponsors, name brand recognition and relations behind it to get FIFA clubs play against non FIFA clubs.
Soooo....fans need to start boycotting sponsors until FIFA cleans house or a new association props up?
What a shitty thing to do to the U.S. team. Now, there's no way that they can have a clean victory, if they win. It's tainted with the smell of corruption.
A concept completely lost on Trump.
A concept normal to Trump
The US should have no path to victory.
That they made it this far has everything to do with biased picks for the initial rounds.
Canada, US and Mexico were all all but guaranteed to get into the round of 32, the US was functionally guaranteed to get into the round of 16.
I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer that I despise the capitalism and fascism the United States government and by extension a significant portion of our population currently represents.
But your take is just biased opinion of hatred for the current administration or our bandwagon of ignorant fans that have no respect for the game. Anyone who watches world football knows that this United States team is undeniably talented. Are they France, England, Spain, Argentina in terms of pitch to bench talent? No. There's more technical ability on all of those teams, but the U.S. almost certainly has more fitness and athleticism than all of them and enough talent to use it to our advantage. This isn't the U.S. of decades past. They have a legitimate chance at making the semi finals where I'd predict we would be knocked out by France. This American squad is legitimately very good. We beat Paraguay handily 4-1 and it wasn't as close as the score suggests. That same Paraguay team eliminated Germany.
As someone who has know knowledge of such things what so ever, do they have any chance at winning the cup?
No, they should not.
In the initial phase of the tournament, only Canada wasn't the top seed in their group of 4(behind the Swiss)
The US barely topped their group and in doing so guaranteed that their round of 32 match was against the third seed in Canada's group, Bosnia which isn't in the top 60.
Canada's round of 32 game was against either a similarly ranked South Korea(~28 as I recall), or against the near-60th ranked South Africa. So Canada wasn't guaranteed to get out of R32, but always had a good shot. Canada was never going to get out of R16 short of an actual miracle, the matchup was Netherlands or Morocco.
For the US, their 2nd R16 match v Belgium will be their first game against a peer-or-better opponent of the tournament where statistically they can lose.
I get and agree with what you're saying here but
The US barely topped their group
Is disingenuous. They won their first two games convincingly, winning the group in only two games. The third game therefore meant nothing, so they didn't play to win and still almost came away with a draw. They could have very likely won that game if the first string played, sweeping the group.
Thats extremely disengenous to the then 22nd ranked team, Turkiye. They were the 2nd best team in that group and legitimately beat the US.
No.
Edit: yes with Trump's help
I think this is what I was really asking.
How can Trump actually help? he can't put balls in the goal.
Yes I get that he can bend FIFA to his will in so far as red cards, but surely that can only really help to an extent.
Bribe the referee from the start. That can easily make or break the game.
That’s a good point actually. I guess they could still do the honorable thing and not use that player
They won't because the US Soccer Federation would not dare humiliate Trump after he's so publicly stated about the red card being overturned.
This is what happens when you give in to dictators.
They won’t though.
I had heard some initial reports that it was suspended due to the way it being reviewed was against the rules. Something about using slow-mo before calling for the review or something. I had hoped that was the case, because this was the alternative. My already extreme disgust for FIFA somehow got way worse.
FIFA, one of the most corrupt groups on the planet? I am shocked!
We all know that, but I think this must be the most public and simple corruption ever
According to reports, the White House made a direct call to FIFA asking president Gianni Infantino to review Balogun’s red card before the United States’ Round of 16 match against Belgium. FIFA later suspended Balogun’s automatic one-match ban under Article 27, making him eligible to play.
Article 66.4 of the same disciplinary code: “A sending-off automatically incurs suspension from the subsequent match. The FIFA judicial bodies may impose additional match suspensions and other disciplinary measures.”
They already ratfucked Iran by making them travel 12 hours by bus from Tijuana to Seattle and back on match day, and by cancelling a winning goal for a supposed offside. Dallas police attacked the Egyptian coach in the airport. This tournament has been the nail in the coffin of FIFA. This is just blatant hyper corruption, sort of a US style UFC-isation of football that the rest of the world will have a difficult time to digest.
Hmm..... TJ to Seattle is like 1200mi/200km, so you're looking at nearly 20 hours before factoring in stops.
FIFA has always been corrupt, from displacement and human trafficking to this. Same as Olympics, NFL, NBA, boxing, WWF, dogfighting, MMA, ad infinitum. People should wake up. Sports aren't wrong, commodification is messed all the way up.
It does come across like someone had a bet going and pulled some strings to have it in their favour.
ok so who in the white house or who amongst trumps friends had a bet and calls had to be made to assist with said bet. I mean the guy literally just openly admitted to insider trading soooooo yeah this wouldn't surprise me.
There is only one possible path we can take now, however terrible it may seem to some : we have to root for Belgium to win that match.
As if FIFA couldn't get any more disgusting...
Bends the knee? Hell, they'd open wide enough for him to go balls deep if he just asked. They'd give the rustiest of trombones...the reachiest of reach arounds. We haven't even talked about the mahogany canoes...
I mean, that criminal investigation didn’t go away just for the made up FIFA peace prize. This was inevitable.
I remember being pleased when we got rid of Blatter
I guess I thought he was the bottom of the barrel
Guess this barrel is all bottom.