UEFA backlash over Balogun ban reversal won't dent Infantino power
FIFA's decision to overturn Folarin Balogun's red card following intervention from Donald Trump has drawn fierce criticism from UEFA, but the organisation's $9bn revenue model ensures Gianni Infantino's re-election next year remains a mathematical certainty.
FIFA has cancelled United States striker Folarin Balogun's red-card suspension for the World Cup last-16 match against Belgium, despite tournament rules explicitly forbidding such appeals. The move followed direct involvement from US President Donald Trump, who told reporters: "I'm the one that got them to do it." More than 24 hours after the initial decision, FIFA released an 871-word statement that failed to explain its reasoning.
European football's governing body reacted with unusual force, accusing FIFA of having "crossed a red line" and labelling the move an "unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision". Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp warned that if Trump and FIFA president Gianni Infantino "really sorted this out between themselves, it is madness; it calls everything into question." Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter also weighed in, writing on X that "football must never become a playground for political power."
FIFA's own statutes strictly prohibit political interference, a rule that has previously seen countries like Pakistan suspended from international football. Yet Trump publicly took credit for the review, highlighting a friendship visibly cemented at the World Cup draw where the US president received the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize. At that event, Infantino told Trump: "You can always count, Mr President, on my support, on the support of the entire football community to help you make peace and make the world prosper all over the world."
The economics of unassailable power
The Balogun case is the latest flashpoint in an escalating institutional conflict between UEFA and FIFA. In May 2025, UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin led a European walkout at the FIFA Congress after Infantino arrived two hours and 17 minutes late from a diplomatic tour with Trump. UEFA has also publicly contrasted its affordable Euro 2028 ticket prices with the World Cup's inflated costs, and invited Somali referee Omar Artan to officiate its Super Cup after US immigration denied him entry to the tournament.
Despite this sustained European backlash, Infantino's grip on the presidency ahead of next year's election is unshakable. The mathematics of the 211-member FIFA Congress dictate the outcome: with unanimous backing confirmed from the 54 African nations, the 47 Asian nations, and South America's 10 members, he already holds 111 votes, comfortably above the 106 required to win.
This political isolation of Europe stems directly from FIFA's financial architecture. Infantino's expanded 48-team World Cup is expected to generate $9bn (£7.9bn) this year, funding the FIFA Forward development programme that smaller global federations rely upon. While wealthy European football can fund itself and therefore afford to challenge FIFA's governance failures, the rest of the world depends on Infantino's commercial revenue to sustain their domestic games.
