Sepp Blatter, 90, former FIFA president, did not stay silent. On Monday, July 6, 2026, he wrote on X a sentence that sums up the whole scandal: “Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls. They are overturned by rules, evidence, and independent bodies”.
What was the reason for his fury? According to AFP and The New York Times, Donald Trump personally called Gianni Infantino to ask him to review the sending-off of Folarin Balogun, the United States forward sanctioned for stepping on the ankle of Tarik Muharemović against Bosnia and Herzegovina. FIFA lifted the suspension and Balogun ended up playing in the round of 16 against Belgium in Seattle: something that had not happened since the 1962 World Cup in Chile.
The Belgian Federation said it was “astonished” and the European League described the whole thing as “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable”. Blatter went further: he called Infantino “Trump’s khaki” and posed the question that now echoes throughout world football: “Where are you going, FIFA?”