Belgium hit Donald Trump with a brutal two-word jab after blasting Team USA out of the FIFA World Cup despite the president’s interference.
“Overturn this,” the Belgian national team, known as the Red Devils, posted on their official X account after their 4-1 triumph Monday night knocked the U.S. out of the tournament.
Trump had called FIFA President Gianni Infantino only days earlier to ask the soccer suck-up to review the red card from a match last week that had seen Team USA star striker Folarin Balogun slapped with a one-game ban.
The presidents are close. Infantino awarded Trump FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize last December—having invented it to curry favor with the president after his Nobel Peace Prize snub.
Balogun received the red card during the tie against Bosnia and Herzegovina last Wednesday. He was sent off in the 64th minute after trampling Bosnian player Tarik Muharemovic’s ankle as the two chased a loose ball. The U.S. won 2-0.
The White House spent the following day frantically speaking with lawyers, digging into the rules, and consulting the men’s national team before Trump placed the call. FIFA announced on Sunday that, for the first time since 1962, the red card would not result in a suspension, clearing Balogun to face Belgium.
The president confirmed on Monday before the evening match that he’d intervened with Infantino, taking credit for the reversal while insisting he hadn’t dictated the outcome. “All I did was ask for a review—I didn’t say, ‘You have to do this,’” he told reporters. He admitted that prior to Balogun’s suspension, “I didn’t know what the hell a red card was.”
That admission did not keep him from declaring the referee who made the decision was “a little bit suspect” and urging journalists, without elaborating, to “check his past.” He also thanked FIFA on Truth Social for “reversing a great injustice.”
The backlash has proven fierce. UEFA, Europe’s governing soccer association, said FIFA had “crossed a red line” and called the decision “unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable.”
The Royal Belgian Football Association sought an explanation for the “incomprehensible and unjustifiable” decision ahead of kick-off on Monday. FIFA decided to treat that request as a formal appeal, then declared it inadmissible because Belgium wasn’t the team playing the U.S. at the match in question.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
