World Cup: US star Balogun in the starting line-up against Belgium

The American national soccer team faces off against in the World Cup round of 16 Belgium on star striker Folarin Balogun in the starting line-up. The 25-year-old is in the formation of national coach Mauricio Pochettino after the world football association FIFA surprisingly lifted the red card ban.

World association declares Belgium’s application inadmissible

Despite harsh criticism and a request from the Belgians, Balogun is eligible to play for the game on Tuesday (2:00 a.m. CEST/ARD and MagentaTV) in Seattle, although he was shown a red card in the 2-0 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The application was declared inadmissible on the grounds that the Belgian association “was not a party to the proceedings and therefore had no right to appeal against the decision”, as stated in the decision by the Fifa was called. The reason for this is apparently that the red card comes from a match in which Belgium was not involved.

A lot of international criticism

In the Balogun case, there was speculation that US President Donald Trump had called FIFA boss Gianni Infantino to lobby for a suspension of the ban for the World Cup round of 16. He himself later said: “I asked for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul. I just called for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul and I know about these things.”

According to information from the New York Times and the AP news agency, several people familiar with the process had previously confirmed the unusual process. This caused a lot of harsh criticism.

© dpa-infocom, dpa:260706-930-344177/1