WASHINGTON — President Trump did not like what he saw. So, once again, he picked up the phone.
Trump said Monday that he called FIFA President Gianni Infantino after he disagreed with the World Cup referee who gave a red card to U.S. men’s soccer team star Folarin Balogun. The discipline, which Trump called “very unfair” and a “stain” on the World Cup, would have barred Balogun from playing in Monday’s elimination game against Belgium.
“I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul,” Trump told reporters during an event in the Oval Office. “I am good at this stuff. I didn’t think it was a foul. I thought it was two great athletes that crashed into each other and got entangled.”
Trump said he initially didn’t know “what the hell a red card was” or what it meant. “When I found out, I said, ‘You gotta be kidding!’” he said.
Trump’s involvement in soccer’s disciplinary process created an international uproar.
UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, said FIFA “crossed a red line” with the reversal. Belgium’s football association appealed the ruling, which FIFA denied during a hearing Monday. Belgian coach Rudi Garcia mocked the decision as an April Fools’ joke.
“This decision clearly raises many questions,” Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot said in a statement Monday, according to the New York Times.
“If a phone call really is what explains this incomprehensible decision, it would amount to undermining the most basic rules of soccer and sports,” added Prévot, a former soccer referee.
Trump’s close relationship with Infantino also has drawn new scrutiny.
In December, Infantino presented Trump with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, an award the governing body created after Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize. That decision is now the subject of an ethics complaint, backed by members of the European Parliament, who argue it compromised FIFA’s political neutrality.
Trump said he did not ask Infantino to reverse the call. But that was the outcome reached by FIFA’s disciplinary committee, which, in 64 years, has reversed a red-card penalty only once during a World Cup tournament.
The episode serves as a reminder of a pattern of behavior the president has exhibited when he doesn’t get his way, regardless of the rules of the game. For Trump, a deal-maker who has described the world as “a casino,” often pushes the boundaries of long-standing norms.
After FIFA reversed course, Trump called the decision “brilliant” and said Belgium can now “be really proud” if they were to beat the U.S. team on Monday night.
“The other way, if they beat us, we’ll say, or I’ll say it was rigged, just like the election was rigged in 2020, but I won’t get into that,” Trump said.
Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist and co-author of “How Democracies Die,” said Trump’s action are “perfectly consistent with how Trump has behaved on the world stage.”
“He has no interest in or no respect for any kind of international rules or norms,” he said.
Levitsky said the events illustrate the Trump administration’s worldview, one that, he argues, revolves around the ethos that “if we’re strong enough, we can leverage our way to whatever the hell we want.”
As examples, he pointed to the administration’s military strikes on boats in the Caribbean and efforts to acquire Greenland, both of which have led to diplomatic tensions.
Trump also has a history of using phone calls to pressure officials to reach an outcome he wants.
In a 2019 call, he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rival, a moment that became the catalyst of his first impeachment. And after losing the 2020 election, he pressed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes,” the margin he needed to flip the state, a move that ultimately led to a criminal indictment.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino presents President Trump with the FIFA Peace Prize in December.
(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)
Trump defended his call with Infantino to reporters and appeared to downplay how much it may have contributed to the red card penalty being reversed.
“I can’t tell [Infantino] what to do, and I don’t believe he made the decision,” Trump said. “I think it was a committee that made the decision, and they made the right decision, because No. 1, it wasn’t a foul, and you want to see a game with your best players.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who was in the Oval Office when Trump acknowledged the call with Infantino, made reference to the Peace Prize as he thanked Trump for “getting rid of the ridiculous red card” ahead of the knockout game.
“There was a reason the FIFA trophy sat here for as long as it did,” Cruz told Trump.
Infantino, for his part, issued a statement Monday insisting that the decision came from FIFA’s independent disciplinary committee and that he told Trump the case would be decided by the body. Bill White, the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, also defended Trump, saying he “would never interfere with the inner workings of FIFA.”
Norman Eisen, co-founder of Democracy Defenders Action, said Trump’s decision to get involved in soccer’s disciplinary process is a “classic example of achieving a right outcome through wrong means.” He added that he believes the Trump administration and FIFA showed to be “two of the most corrupt entities around.”
“Like many Americans who are following the World Cup and rooting our team on, I thought it was a bad call,” Eisen said. “But I would never have chosen to bring that about in this fashion.”
Levitsky argued that given the popularity of the World Cup, which hundreds of millions of people around the world are tuning into to watch, Trump is opening himself up for more scrutiny on the global scale.
“People across the world who don’t give a damn about politics are following the World Cup, and they’re seeing the United States behave this way, taking what it can take at the expense of others unfairly,” he said. “Of course it is going to hurt the U.S. image abroad.”