One of the stranger things about Wednesday night’s U.S. win over Bosnia-Herzegovina wasn’t the scoreline. It was the silence that followed on social media — a stunned, disbelieving quiet before it gave way to something much louder. After what appeared to most spectators to be an inadvertent step on an opponent’s ankle during a scramble for a loose ball, Folarin Balogun, the team’s top attacker in this tournament and the man who had already put one in the net that evening, was leaving the field with a red card. The United States prevailed 2-0. They made progress. Due to FIFA’s regulations, they will now play Belgium on Monday without their top scorer.
When questioned about the game the next morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the team “got screwed.” That’s about as direct as senior officials get when discussing soccer, and it did a decent job of capturing the spirit of the country. Mauricio Pochettino, the head coach of the USMNT, had previously stated that the challenge was never deliberate, that stepping on players in confined spaces is a common occurrence in the game, and that it was evident from watching the video that this was never a red card decision. After VAR flagged the play and declared it a serious foul, Claus, the Brazilian referee, arrived at the pitchside monitor. There is no way to appeal that decision, and it carries an automatic one-match suspension.
There’s something almost surreal about that last part. FIFA has confirmed that red card suspensions at the World Cup do not have a disciplinary appeal procedure. A nation that hosted the competition, a team that attracted millions of spectators, and a player who did what his coach described as an inadvertent act—and the governing body has just said, “That’s it.” The game has progressed. Now prepare for Belgium.
American lawyers became interested, of course. The Wall Street Journal essentially issued a call to action for someone to come up with a legal strategy. Although sports law is a specialized field and lawsuits against governing bodies like FIFA often fail, it is still worthwhile to comprehend the theories because they show how well-insulated organizations like FIFA have made themselves from external accountability.
The most obvious allegation would be negligence, claiming that the referee and VAR applied the Laws of the Game incorrectly in a manner that no qualified official should have. The issue is that courts have traditionally been extremely hesitant to question athletic officials. Referees use their discretion. That’s the whole point of having them. Judges typically close that door quickly, and for good reason, unless there is proof of fraud or corruption. A court could theoretically overturn any call in any sport if it can overturn a red card, which is a precedent that no one really wants.
Consistency is a slightly more intriguing legal theory that a more experienced sports lawyer might bring up. If Balogun’s challenge was deemed a serious foul worthy of ejection while materially similar plays elsewhere in this tournament drew nothing more than a yellow, or nothing at all, that begins to look less like a judgment call and more like arbitrary enforcement. FIFA has written rules. There is at least a case to be made if those rules are applied drastically differently depending on the game, the referee, or, to be honest, the stadium. Although it’s a weak argument, it’s genuine.
Even so, it’s difficult to avoid reaching the same conclusion that the majority of legal observers came to before finishing their coffee on Thursday morning: winning this in court would take more than a poor decision. Evidence of something much more serious would be needed. For the U.S. team, the red card was contentious, potentially incorrect, and extremely expensive. However, “possibly wrong” has never been sufficient to force FIFA to appear in court and produce a decision.
Balogun will watch from the stands Monday. In ways that are more important than the lineup, his teammates will play Belgium without a man. And FIFA will continue operating under rules it wrote, enforced by officials it appointed, with no outside review process whatsoever. There’s a feeling, watching all of this, that the real story isn’t the red card itself — it’s the quiet confidence of an organization that knows, with some certainty, that no lawsuit is coming for it anytime soon.
