One of the most talked about incidents of the recent World Cup continues to make headlines days after the tournament ended.

In the United States’s Round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 2. USMNT forward Folarin Balogun sent off for a clumsy challenge on Tarik Muharemovic as both players challenged for the ball in the 64th minute. Balogun inadvertently dragged his studs down his opponent’s calf in the tussle for possession, which left both players on the floor. Referee Raphael Claus didn’t immediately call a foul but was alerted by his colleague Juan Soto in the VAR room that the move was being reviewed for a possible red card offense. After reviewing the images, Claus handed Balogun a straight red card, leaving the USMNT a man down for the rest of the game.

But worst still, any player shown a direct red card during the tournament automatically faces a one-game suspension - coach Mauricio Pochettino would be without the team’s top goal scorer for the Round of 16 match against Belgium five days later in Seattle. A huge headache for the co-hosts.

US Soccer’s lawyers toiled to find a way of appealing the red card to too free up Balogun for the Belgium game. A phonecall from US president Donald Trump to FIFA president Gianni Infantino did the trick. The one-match ban was overturned under the Article 27 authority of the FIFA Disciplinary Code - a decision which shocked the Belgians.

Bending the rules puts FIFA on a slippery slope

This week, four days after the World Cup ended, it has emerged that the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) is weighing up the possibility of filing a formal complaint to FIFA’s Ethics Committee regarding Balogun’s reprieve.

NFF president Lise Klaveness told The Times: “We all know that this verdict was influenced by external forces and was not procedurally correct. Our leader within FIFA must be able to say that this was a mistake. When you bend the rules in this way, you end up on a slippery slope that puts the entire sport at risk. It’s a big concern for football when you compromise the fundamental rules of the game”.

We will see if the NFF’s complaint goes any further but if the 2026 World Cup showed us anything, it’s that mixing soccer and politics is a dangerous combination.

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