ccaggie05 said:

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I'm honestly somewhat shocked at how big of deal everybody is making of this. People are acting like this is one of the biggest sports scandals in history. It's insane.

Is FIFA corrupt? Absolutely. Should there is be a formal appeals process for a suspension along with transparancy on why a specific decision is made? Of course. The lack of either of those things lets everybody draw their own conclusions about what did or didn't happen.

I think a lot of this is about more than FIFA corruption or sports integrity. It's about hating Trump or the US due to politics. It's about hating that "maybe" one day the US won't just being a laughing stock at this sport.

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ccaggie05 said:

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I'm honestly somewhat shocked at how big of deal everybody is making of this. People are acting like this is one of the biggest sports scandals in history. It's insane.

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🔴 Nouveau communiqué de la RBFA concernant l'affaire Balogun :

« Suite à sa précédente déclaration, la RBFA souhaite expliquer publiquement le déroulement des événements de ces dernières heures.

Après avoir appris par voie de presse la décision de la FIFA de lever la… pic.twitter.com/1R5qsammkV

— Joueurs Belges 🇧🇪 (@JoueursBE) July 6, 2026

Bag said:

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ccaggie05 said:

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I'm honestly somewhat shocked at how big of deal everybody is making of this. People are acting like this is one of the biggest sports scandals in history. It's insane.

Is FIFA corrupt? Absolutely. Should there is be a formal appeals process for a suspension along with transparancy on why a specific decision is made? Of course. The lack of either of those things lets everybody draw their own conclusions about what did or didn't happen.

I think a lot of this is about more than FIFA corruption or sports integrity. It's about hating Trump or the US due to politics. It's about hating that "maybe" one day the US won't just being a laughing stock at this sport.

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I'm not shocked, this is the SEC * 100000000 on a global scale, there is a lot of butt hurt to go around for the last 1500 years of history including wars, genocide, colonization , slavery, its got every story line you could want

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Little Rock Ag said:

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It's simply a way of encapsulating hate and resentment toward the United States. Soccer has always been a rest of the world versus America thing. Now that we have flexed a little, the globalists are panicking. I'm not surprised by the backlash because it's fear on full display.

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wangus12 said:

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I don't think its fear of the USMNT. None of these big teams should be scared of the USA on the pitch. People are pissed 100% because the US government and specifically Trump got involved and got a result changed that everyone said couldn't be done. It looks like corruption and collusion of the highest order at the biggest sporting event in the world.

That's why people are upset. Again, there would be far less backlash if 1)FIFA had reversed the decision the day after the match and 2) if was simply stated that USSF appealed the red card and won because VAR was wrongly implemented.

As it is right now, it looks like the US gov. simply strong arming FIFA into getting what they want.

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carl spacklers hat said:

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Aston94 said:

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FIFA is absolutely the most corrupt body in the world…followed closely by UEFA. So a player not having to sit an extra game because of an obviously terrible call is the "red line"? Not the 15,000 people who died making stadiums for WC 2022, not all the bribes and kick backs taken by soccer officials over the years, not CR7 getting the same treatment for this WC, this is the red line?

FIFA needs a formal appeal process for red cards, but because they don't have one it leads to crap like this.

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If ANYONE but Trump had a hand in this, it gets a tenth of the play it's currently generating. But because Trump had a call with Infantino, the TDS crowd is absolutely raging. There was an article in the WSJ this morning on it and it goes as you would imagine.

Personally I'm loving it. As someone earlier posted, USA is a proper footballing nation now!

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Bag said:

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Little Rock Ag said:

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It's simply a way of encapsulating hate and resentment toward the United States. Soccer has always been a rest of the world versus America thing. Now that we have flexed a little, the globalists are panicking. I'm not surprised by the backlash because it's fear on full display.

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I have lots of friends all over the globe, the benefit of a long career in oil and gas and i don't get that feeling at all. If anything they have all been waiting for the US to catch up so we can all be on the same footing. The US has largely been an after thought, irrelevant. It wasnt the rest of the world vs the US, it was as if the rest of the world playing at recess and the US was stuck inside in detention

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deadbq03 said:

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And really the reverse is true… the US wasn't merely non-soccer, we were largely anti-soccer (and many still are based on comments I've heard in some sports bars in the past couple weeks).

I grew up making fun of the sport and never watched a game until WC 2010. Now it's my favorite sport (and has grown to be the favorite sport of 10% of the US, according to Sports Illustrated, ahead of baseball).

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carl spacklers hat said:

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Bag said:

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annie88 said:

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Bag said:

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Enrico Pallazzo said:

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It was a bull**** suspension. Anyone with an ounce of belief in fair sport would support it being lifted. Any debate beyond that is just a circle jerk. Go outside or something.

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That was not the point, of course it was a terrible call, I just would have preferred to beat them wo him which we are absolutely capable of.

And I don't like the narrative that we need daddy to come to our rescue

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He didn't. Your beef should've been more with the ****ty call. Your beef should be with FIFA.

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****ty calls happen all the time in every sport, domt remember needing to get the leader of the free world involved

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You're extremely dense if you don't think other countrys' political figures aren't influencing FIFA. US just stepped up to the big boy table, took a seat at the head of it and got done what needed to be done - rectifying an error made during the match. Anyone *****ing about that is either ignorant of the way soccer works or has an ulterior motive influencing their argument.

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rsf0626 said:

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Trump needs to stop talking about this to the public. The more he yaps the more corrupt it sounds. Dude is literally bragging about his personal call to the FIFA president

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I’M CRYING 😂😂

pic.twitter.com/NBWI5rgnTA

— Hater Report (@HaterReport) July 5, 2026

Max Power said:

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I don't understand the commentators on ESPN FC. I watched each of them to a person indicate they thought the red card was not the correct call, but also every one of them saying that FIFA should stand by the decision. Why do they think they stand by a decision if they believe it's incorrect? The red card against England last night was a textbook example of a true red card offense. What Messi did in Argentina's first game should have been a red card and didn't even draw a yellow. Why is the correcting of a bad call so offensive to these people?

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FTAG 2000 said:

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TXAggie2011 said:

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Infantino should not have taken the call. Or, at a minimum deferred calls 2 and 3 and whatever else. It would have been obvious from the caller ID what was coming and there is no special knowledge of this issue within the Oval Office. No good was to come of that.

But Infantino cannot help himself as he took this job for the precise reason that he gets calls from such folks.

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Are you that naive that you don't think fifa leaders take calls from leaders of soccer federations and countries with regularity?

Qatar was using slave labor to build stadiums and people are crying about Trump. What a bunch of pansies.

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Aston94 said:

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TXAggie2011 said:

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Infantino should not have taken the call. Or, at a minimum deferred calls 2 and 3 and whatever else. It would have been obvious from the caller ID what was coming and there is no special knowledge of this issue within the Oval Office. No good was to come of that.

But Infantino cannot help himself as he took this job for the precise reason that he gets calls from such folks.

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If you are hosting the largest global event within a country and the country's president calls you, you take the call.

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