U.S. Player Trump Pressed FIFA to Clear
is Birthright Citizenship Product from UK
Capitol Inside
July 6, 2026
A super-fired up club from Belgium embarrassed a badly-distracted United States team on Monday night in a FIFA World Cup match after President Donald Trump pushed to have an American player reinstated after a controversial red card suspension that sparked international outrage after it was overturned.
Trump said before the match that he would have claimed that the round of 16 contest to be rigged like the 2020 election if U.S. star Falorin Balogun was forced to remain on the sidelines and the Americans lost the game. But Balogun was allowed to play after the American president called FIFA President Gianni Infantino and requested a review of the red card that Trump believed to be a bad call in the previous game. Balogun only played 19 minutes in a match that went on for more than 90 - a statistic that Trump might see as an insult given the extent of his involvement in the deliberations on his fate for the contest.
But the player who Trump rode into town to save doesn't fit the conventional description that red-blooded Republicans have of fellow Americans. Balogun is a product of birthright citizenship, a time-honored practice that Trump and his GOP allies have been fighting to end.
Balogun was born in Brooklyn while his parents were in the U.S. on an extended visit from London where they were residents. Balogun lived a grand total of two months in New York before the family returned home to the UK. While that's been the American World Cup star's main residence ever since, he plays for Monaco in the French Football League for a full-time job.
Balogun is one of four U.S. World Cup team members who aren't actually residents of the country they were representing in Seattle on Monday night. U.S. teammates Sergiño Dest and Antonee Robinson were born in the Netherlands and England respectively - both lived briefly in the New York area when they were young children. Both have lived in their home countries in Europe since they were kids.
U.S. player Malik Tillman, who scored the team's only goal in the clash with Belgium, didn't have to ever live in the United States to qualify for a spot on the World Cup team here. Tillman was born in the historic German city of Nuremberg - and he's a resident now of Fürth in Bavarian Germany. But Tillman gained dual citizenship in the U.S. by virtue of his father's membership in the U.S. armed forces when he was stationed in Germany and met the soccer player's mother there.
Robinson, a defender for the American soccer team, played 80 minutes in the match with Belgium while the midfielder Tillman was on the field for 61. Dest was only in the game with 23 minutes - four more than Balogun.
Trump suggested that the U.S. match with Belgium would be fair after FIFA reversed course on Balogun as the president had requested. Trump said both countries would be fielding full teams as a result of the dramatic about-face. While Balogun appeared to suffer a possible injury in warm ups, the uninvited attention and pressure that Trump had generated for him may have explained why he was ineffective on the biggest stage of his career.
The maneuvering triggered headlines around the world on the tainting of FIFA's integrity with the ruling that the American president asked it to make. A U.S. win over Belgium was destined to have a major asterisk beside if the Americans had prevailed. While FIFA rejecting of Belgium's appeal of the decision that Trump had encouraged, the winning team's players did a victory dance after the match ended that the team dedicated to Trump.
All of the players on the Belgium roster are residents of the nation they've been representing in the World Cup. The quartet of Europeans who were eligible to compete for the Americans due to tenuous links from their past gave the U.S. team a mercenaries feel.
The president in the meantime has set himself for claims about a Trump curse for sporting events in which he becomes involved. The New York Knicks lost the only game that Trump attended in the NBA finals series against the San Antonio Spurs. The lackluster performance by a U.S. team that was overwhelmed by the added spotlight gives proponents of a Trump sports curse fresh ammunition.
more to come ...
| 
