"The president is able to do what the president wants to do." That was the best JT Batson could offer when asked — three times — whether US Soccer regrets Donald Trump personally calling FIFA president Gianni Infantino to lobby for Folarin Balogun's red card to be overturned.
The third time the question came, from the Guardian, the US Soccer CEO simply ended the roundtable early. "We're done, we gotta go. I'm sorry." About ten minutes short of the agreed hour.
What actually happened with Balogun
The sequence of events is worth laying out clearly. Balogun received a red card against Bosnia and Herzegovina for accidentally stepping on an opponent's ankle while competing for the ball. Trump, watching from the stands, subsequently made multiple calls to Infantino lobbying for a review. FIFA suspended the ban. FIFA also denied Trump's calls had any bearing on that decision. Almost nobody believes them.
Balogun handled it better than the federation did, acknowledging the "outside noise" while trying to lock in for the Belgium game. He could see the nerves in his teammates. Hard not to — the entire situation was unprecedented, a sitting US president personally intervening in a World Cup disciplinary matter.
And then the US lost 4-1 anyway.
What Batson's non-answer actually says
Batson's deflection wasn't really a deflection — it was an answer. He's not going to criticize the president of the United States in a public forum, and he's not going to validate the criticism either. So he talked about fan support and soccer's growing place in the American sports landscape, which is the kind of answer you give when you have no good answer.
The problem for US Soccer is that the optics of this whole episode haven't aged well. The lobbying effort dominated the build-up to the Belgium match. The distraction argument is speculative, but a 4-1 loss to Belgium doesn't exactly put it to rest. And now their chief executive is cutting press conferences short rather than address it directly.
Balogun described the decision as "something so unique." That's one word for it. The federation walking out on its own media roundtable to avoid the follow-up question is another data point entirely.
