Editorial: Why Donald Trump should not have intervened in that World Cup dispute over Folarin Balogun

To Donald Trump’s supporters, the U.S. president was doing his job when he called - reportedly as many as three times - FIFA president Gianni Infantino, a pal, to argue that the red-card suspension for the star U.S. soccer player Folarin Balogun should be lifted.

After all, the decision in the game, in which the U.S vanquished Bosnia and Herzegovina in San Francisco on Wednesday, had been controversial. It is clear that Balogun stepped on an opponent’s ankle, but whether there was any malicious intent is open to debate; we looked at the slow-motion replay like much of the rest of the soccer-loving world and thought Balogun’s eye was on the ball with his body in motion.

In this brave new world of video-assisted officiating, such frame-by-frame reviews are of colossal importance, but human referees are better at elucidating intent. A good case could be made that a yellow (cautionary) card would have been a better decision than sending Balogun off the field and thus automatically applying the one-match ban that would have kept him off the field Monday night.

But that’s not our point here. We’re also not even particularly writing about soccer but about Trump’s ability to tarnish almost everything he touches with the corrosive rot of self-interest. It may be that Infantino and the various FIFA bodies did not take Trump’s strong-arming into account when they decided to suspend Balogun’s ban, which the rules say was not subject to any appeal. Infantino has claimed as much.

But we’ll never know the truth, will we?

Certainly, most of the world’s media have already decided what happened.

The U.S. president asks his powerful pal to find a way to get Balogun back on the field, even though Trump previously had no clue what a red card meant. FIFA duly figured out a way. The U.S. got its star back but at the cost of everyone’s integrity: FIFA’s, Balogun’s, the U.S. coaching staff’s, the underlings (such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio) who needlessly congratulated the boss.

Whether or not Trump’s intervention affected the outcome is almost beside the point. The appearance that it might have is itself damaging.

A red card in soccer might not seem like much of importance, but it’s a talisman for Trump’s habitual inability to accept the importance of nonpartisan institutions in democratic life, be they the Federal Reserve, the judiciary or even the results of democratically held elections.

No one questions that the U.S. needs Balogun just as Argentina needs Lionel Messi and England Harry Kane. If this turnaround really was a direct consequence of Trump’s lobbying, what we inarguably are witnessing is something closely akin to a government body taking part in match-fixing.

Before Trump, Republicans had great respect for playing by the rules and, just as importantly, of being seen to be playing by the rules.

Examples abound of those smart enough not to make these kinds of calls. Take, for example, the furor in the United Kingdom over Prince Harry’s demand for government-paid security on his visits home with his family, something the British government and its deliberative body have denied him.

That’s an arguable matter, too, but what is inarguable is that Harry’s father, King Charles III, is constitutionally forbidden from interfering in the decision-making of those independent bodies. Most reasonable people will see that there can be little doubt that the British monarch would want both to see his grandchildren and keep them as safe as possible. And he is, after all, the titular king. He could demand to intervene but instead has demurred because he sees the bigger principle in a situation that comes with a considerable amount of personal cost. Intervene there, and public confidence in crucial institutions is further undermined.

This, of course, is what Trump should have seen. Make those phone calls and the team’s achievements on the field are undermined, as is its level of global support as a relative newcomer among elite soccer nations. And these are changes that are about far more than one player, last far longer than just one match, and touch sports and other forms of soft diplomatic power that range far beyond soccer.

In fairness to Trump, he’s not entirely alone. The British newspaper The Sun reported Monday that lame-duck British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had let FIFA know through diplomatic channels he was opposed to a potential change in kickoff time on Sunday, although that probably had more to do with the impact on British fans traveling to the game than the game itself, although one never knows. Dumb idea from a man who has made many prior mistakes.

Such is the furor over this World Cup that government leaders make fools of themselves. Clearly, it’s too much to ask someone like Trump not to make that call to his FIFA buddy. But we can hope for future leaders, be they local or national, who will have a better grasp of the bigger picture and not pick up the phone.

The U.S. has benefited enormously from the World Cup. Trust Trump to score a goal against the U.S. team.

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This story was originally published July 6, 2026 at 2:57 PM.