Folarin Balogun can play for the US national team in their World Cup round-of-16 match against Belgium. FIFA has confirmed that his red-card ban for one game has been suspended.
The 25-year-old striker got a straight red card during the match against Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday for a foul on defender Tarik Muharemovic. This usually means a one-game suspension under FIFA rules, but that decision has now been overturned.
UEFA, European soccer’s governing body, vehemently noted that FIFA’s has reached unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision.
“Yesterday’s decision to suspend for a probationary period of a year the implementation of the one-match automatic suspension following the red card issued to the player Folarin Balogun crossed a red line.
Football, like any other sport, 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 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.”
