What a match it turned out to be, I do not follow soccer, I do have a basic grasp of the rules and I certainly know the difference between a yellow card and a red card. What I do not understand is how a US President can phone the head of FIFA and get a mandatory penalty overruled.

So when Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino to get the red card overturned, this smacks of corruption. This was the same FIFA President who awarded Trump inaugural FIFA Peace Prize in December 2025. When a politician exerts political power and influence to change on-field decisions, a dangerous precedent has been set. The credibility of FIFA is forever tarnished, there are already concerns of corruption within FIFA, all this does is reinforce negative views of FIFA as a corrupt organisation. It is hard to argue otherwise, it looks like they have not cleaned up their act.

Who I feel for is Folarin Balogun, he is the player in the middle of this mess and he will be forever tainted by this. Was the red card fair, well, the referee allowed the play to continue and the video assisted referee [VAR] reviewed the incident and triggered this episode. Was the Balogun tackle intentional? Did he intend to injure the opposition player? The answer to both questions is probably not, was the penalty severe in the circumstances? Probably, it was, however, the process to overturn the decision and not the act is the issue here.

What I enjoyed was the Belgium team’s response. Even I followed the match online, I wanted Belgium to beat the United States. From what I learned, pretty much the whole world with the exception of the United States felt the same way. What was the best was how the Belgium players celebrated, on field they did a little Trump dance. That was good, but when they got back to the locker room, the oddly swaying hips, the slow movement clenched fist pump was just brilliant, all to the Village People’s YMCA. The Belgium football team mocked Trump, the Belgium people mocked Trump and we all watched on and laughed.