More thoughts on Balogun’s red card suspension and irony of the FIFA decision.
Balogun is a poster child of and for Birthright Citizenship, something trump and his band of merrymaking sycophants have been hard at work trying to dismantle. Trump has been working tirelessly to stop or restrict people from “shithole” countries from exploiting our constitution. The irony is, Folarin Balogun’s parents are not Americans rather British who had been living in London at the time of Folarn’s birth in Brooklyn. Folarin Grew up in the UK not the USofA.
Trump got FIFA president to review and rescind the red-card of a Birthrights’ athlete just so he could continue to play in the World Cup for the US.
Replies to: “More thoughts on Balogun’s red card suspension and irony of the FIFA decision.”
Now you are upset that Trump follows SCOTUS decisions?
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He should sit, at least for a half. Win with honor.
Trump ruins everything he touches.
I just watched a press conference where he said he didn't know what a red card was but assured us it was not a foul. And took full credit for getting him eligible to play.
It is awful. Balogun should sit.
Allowing VAR to red card a non-call would be silly.
“VAR made their recommendation to the referee based on slow-motion and still replays, which is not aligned with VAR protocols, as these should be used for only point-of-contact purposes in a red card tackle situation.”
You have no idea what you are talking about. Just stop.
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First time a red card suspension has ever been overturned in the World Cup.
189 red cards in the history of the World Cup. This in the only time FIFA has overturned a red card suspension. Nothing to see here, I'm sure.
WSJ reported that FIFA overturned a multi-game suspension so Ronaldo could play in WC.
Guess that wasn't a red card?...although it must have been worse than a red card because it was more than one game.
Seems like FIFA set the precedent for this already. Good thing they aren't a corrupt organization.
[Just saw the discussion below on this. Ronaldo's suspension occurred in WC qualification, correct? And allowed him to play in WC games he would otherwise have been barred from. I'mnot an expert; I just happened to have seen the WSJ piece. Seems like the Ronaldo overturning set the precedent to let stars play in the WC.]]
For the 3rd time, Ronaldo's red card was not issued in the World Cup.
It was prior to the World Cup. My original post stands. This is the first red card suspension issued in a World Cup that has been overturned.
I mean, how is that simple statement so hard for people to understand?
Flail away I guess....Sheesh.
Agreed. And my point still stands as well. Ronaldo allowed to play in WC.
The effect of the overturnings allowed the players to play in WC games they otherwise would have been barred from. (Pardon my grammar.) Am I wrong? Did I misread the article?
You're not wrong. But no one was arguing the opposite.
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Rooney -- switching gears -- where do you rate England's win last night?
[excerpts of article from The Telegraph -- typically very critical]
We came to see England attempt to secure what would be the greatest win in their World Cup history outside their own island. This was it: the finest World Cup performance since 1966, and yet by the end it felt even bigger than that. An epic of which we shall talk about for years, a brilliant, resolute, flawed, 108 minutes in total of all the best of this thing we call English football.
First, that unbeaten Azteca Stadium record for Mexico in 26 competitive games going back to 2013: it’s over. It ended with the poor soul in the stadium address system having to press play on Three Lions at the final whistle and just short of 78,000 Mexicans forced to listen to “football’s coming home” and all that. It was not supposed to end like this for Mexico, but their World Cup is over. England face Norway in Miami on Saturday in a World Cup quarter-final.
They go with a lighter load than the burden shouldered by England teams of the past. For the first time in 40 years, the Azteca for England is no longer about Diego Maradona’s handball goal and then his great, humiliating second. Now, it is about this frankly absurd game which ended with England hurtling forward into the last eight of the World Cup, having turned up at 7,350 feet with no high-altitude preparation whatsoever.
Throughout it all you had to remember that England were playing at high altitude, against a team who last lost a World Cup game in Mexico in 1970 in Toluca. In three home tournaments, Mexico have never lost at the Azteca, until now. They are not a giant of the game on the basis of their players’ pedigree, but here in this stadium they are much more than the sum of their parts.
Their lungs burning and their muscles aching, the 11 men of England, and then the 10 men of England, beat a fervent football nation on its own patch.
This was a great performance. This was not the fanatical full-press commitment of the Mexico team who tore through Ecuador in the previous round. They stood off England, and the game took on a different form, but Mexico were always dangerous. They had passed through the first England press, so Tuchel adapted. England let the centre-back César Montes have the ball and trusted that he was the least dangerous passers of Mexico’s centre-halves.
They saw it home. Yes, there were moments of jeopardy but, as the 11 minutes of time added on slowly expired, it gradually dawned that this time it would not be England fouling it up. Sadly, for the great Mexican football nation – it would be them again, hustled out of their tournament.
In the England celebrations that followed, Henderson failed to jump cleanly over an advertising board and landed badly – his wrist potentially broken. A surreal moment as he was carried off on a stretcher, his England team-mates caught somewhere between joy and concern. How had this happened? The last eight of the World Cup. Germany, the Netherlands and now Brazil all out.
It felt like the thin air had finally altered all perceptions of reality, but here it was, plain to see, the best we have of England at the World Cup since 1966. That is a summer only a few alive can still remember, but still tolls down the years as a reminder of the possible. That World Cup, for Sir Alf Ramsey’s team, was all played at Wembley, while this occasion was 5,550 miles away from north-west London in a stadium where, generally, teams come to lose. But not England. Not this time.
Monumental.
Honestly, as a lifelong fan of England I've grown accustomed to them rarely, if ever, rising to the occasion. It's just not what they do. For a lot of those years they just didn't have the quality of Germany, Italy, Brazil, France and Spain. And in years that they did, they never seemed able to get all their stars to buy-in to the team and play together.
This year England's got world class talent. Kane, Rice and Bellingham are surely in everyone's list of the best 12-15 players in the tournament. I could always count on Kane and Rice to buy-in, but I had my doubts about Bellingham. Last night's performance from Jude, and from the entire team really, leads me to believe they are finally one team and they have a chance to get to the final. Overcoming last night's adversity has to give them the belief. They finally rose to the occasion. This team has spirit.
I don't know how they get past France if they make the final, but I'll worry about that another day. Today is for proudly wearing my Rooney England shirt!
Because maybe
You're gonna be the one who saves me
And after all
You're my Wonderwall.
I was impressed with the team defending during the last 30 plus minutes of the game.
I bet that felt like a lifetime to any England fan.
Agreed.
When Mexico scored to make it 3-2 I thought for sure the tying goal was imminent. But Jordan Pickford was imperious in net and Tuchel switching the defense to a tight 5-3-1 and bringing on those taller defenders was brilliant. After about 10 minutes it became pretty clear that all Mexico had were those long crosses into the box and England's taller defenders were able to head away most of the danger balls.
Still sweated out the last 30 minutes of the game.
Tuchel proved last night that he was a good hire.
He went "all in" defending the one goal lead.
Bringing in Stones and Burn was huge. The entire squad stepped up. Pickford will never buy a pint again in his lifetime.
I read that England returned last night to their base in Kansas City. Tuchel gave the team off for the next two days to recover.
Except Henderson. Still in a Mexico City hospital.
When he substituted for Kane I felt like the game was over.
Tuchel showed he wasn't worried about the game being decided by PKs so he didn't need Harry anymore. He was confident the boys would follow his plan and they had this in regulation.
I was a Southgate fan. He got the players to believe they were good enough to compete at the highest levels. But tactically, Tuchel is a tier or two above Southgate. He's so good.
Garrincha. Ronaldo.
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Wrong. And wrong.
Garrincha's red card in 1962 didn't carry an automatic suspension. The rules were changed in 1970.
Ronaldo's red card was prior to the World Cup.
Soccer fans know the difference. ChatGPT failed you.
Both suspensions were overturned. Ronaldo’s was more egregious.
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Please stop.
Garrincha's red card did not carry an automatic suspension. Go look it up. Ask ChatGPT again. He was never suspended in the first place. Prior to 1970 suspensions were decided after the match. FIFA chose not to suspend him. That is entirely different than overturning a suspension. There never was a suspension to overturn.
And for the 2nd time, Ronaldo's red card was prior to the World Cup. It was not in the World Cup.
I implore you. Please stop. You were wrong. You are wrong. And you'll be wrong again if you continue this.
This dude will keep flailing until “he” has the last word. Definitely not worth your time.
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Helps explain his Username changes...
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This is 100% true
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Agreed.
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Implore yourself.
Garrincha received a suspension which was overturned at the request of his president.
Prior to the creation of the red card, sure, but overturned nonetheless.
It is disingenuous to suggest the Ronaldo’s 3 game suspension
did not affect his ability to play in this year’s World Cup.
He received a reduced suspension and probation.
He definitely deserved the suspension.
Flo did not.
You have yet to address that VAR did not
Follow FIFA protocols.
Why is that?
Belgium granted leave to appeal 1-year suspended Balogun red card.
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From The Telegraph:
Fifa is facing a growing backlash as leading nations urge Gianni Infantino to come clean about alleged political interference that threatens to undermine the World Cup.
The tournament was engulfed in its biggest crisis on Monday after it emerged Donald Trump called Infantino, the Fifa president, to help overturn Folarin Balogun’s suspension for the United States, allowing him to play against Belgium in the round of 16.
Uefa denounced “the unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision” to allow Balogun to play. Sepp Blatter, the former Fifa president, joined the condemnation while England and Germany voiced concerns about the US president’s call that has cast a cloud over the tournament.
Thomas Tuchel, the England manager, was bewildered by the unprecedented reprieve after Jarell Quansah’s red card against Mexico, complaining: “Where does it end now?”
Infantino’s predecessor, Blatter, who resigned following the corruption scandal that engulfed Fifa in 2015 and was subsequently banned from football, posted on X: “Red cards are not overturned by political phone calls. They are overturned by rules, evidence and independent bodies. If a US president intervenes with the Fifa president – and a player is suddenly cleared before a World Cup knockout match – the question is unavoidable: Quo vadis [where are you going], Fifa?”
Uefa – the head of which, Aleksander Čeferin, is also a Fifa vice-president – issued a statement accusing its fellow governing body of having “crossed a red line”.
It said: “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 [a] 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.”
It has placed Balogun in such a precarious position. This is something that will reshape his career
and life. No one thought about him and what it will do to him.
I hope he says thanks but no thanks, I’ll take the suspension.
My wife and I agree that the team and Balogun should take the higher road.
"Although Team USA firmly believes the red card was unwarranted, we are uncomfortable with any appearance of special treatment because we are a host nation. We look forward to playing Belgium tonight. Flo Balogun will not be playing."
Trump will have ICE agents in US locker room to detain Balogun in the event Belgium prevails.
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I’ll take that prop bet.
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FIFA Got it right.
Why are you upset that Trump requested a review for an injustice to a black man?
Everybody knows the red card was excessive.
Your post is gibberish.
Because it's corruption. No other red card is going to be reversed.
An English defender got a red last night. No chance that will be reversed.
Trump got the FIFA peace prize. He is connected, This is corrupt.
And we know FIFA cannot be bought. 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia.
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Interesting you bring race into it
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Interesting you object to Trump advocating for a Black man.
You guys whine about everything.
FIFA got it right.
It was an awful call.
Regardless of race, Trump would've meddled into the decision because he's...well...Trump
He could've not used his fat, sausage fingers to Truth what happened but he had to make sure he was recognized for getting involved.
Nonsense.
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Irony indeed
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Consent Management