July 7 – Just hours after FIFA president Gianni Infantino bowed to a request from US president Donald Trump to overturn Foralin Balogun’s red card in time for him to play against Belgium today in the last 16 tie, a UK MP has requested the same of Infantino for England player Jarell Quansah.
Quansah received a highly debatable red card (awarded following one of the rare interventions of VAR at this tournament), that under FIFA’s rules exclude him from the quarter final stage against Norway on Saturday.
From the quarter finals players holding yellow cards are given an amnesty but the one match automatic suspension for a red card stays in place.
Unless you are of course Donald Trump who has a hot line to Infantino.
Noah Law, Labour Member of Parliament for St Austell & Newquay in his letter to Infantino, described Quansah’s tackle as “clumsy” but continued: “Whilst I believe that it was right for Jarell Quansah to have received this red card and that refereeing rules must be applied consistently, I believe it would be right to delay his suspension until after the completion of this World Cup.”
Referencing the controversial decision to lift the suspension of Folarin Balogun, he said that the integrity of the tournament depends on rules and equality of their application, and more so in a world where our “international rules-based order is under threat”.
“The integrity of any major international tournament depends not only on players and officials adhering to the rules, but also on those rules being applied equally to all participating nations. I am sure we will be unable to justify a situation in which one player benefits from a delayed suspension while another, in materially similar circumstances, does not,” said Law.
“At a time when our multilateral system and the international rules-based order is under threat, I urge you to treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.”
Trump gave a press conference where he praised Infantino for the delivery of the World Cup generally and for the dispensation given to Balogun. Trump is the only person globally who has so far endorsed the decision that has horrified the football world.
One wonders if Trump would have made the call if he had known that Balogun was born in the US to Nigerian parents who were living in England.
Balogun’s parents were visiting New York when his mother was seven months pregnant with him. Airline staff refused to allow her to board the family’s return flight to London due to safety concerns over her pregnancy. Balogun was subsequently born in New York and returned to London with his parents when he was two months old, and grew up in London.
Last week Trump had his executive order to end birthright citizenship in the US struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In that respect it has been a good two weeks for Balogun. One wonders if Trump and his policy makers realise that Balogun is a black man who was born in the US while his folks were holidaying. Exactly the category of citizenship they were trying to outlaw.
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