July 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nFIFA did, however, explain the reasoning behind their decision in a statement of their own.<\/p>\n
“In line with article 27 of the FIFA disciplinary code, the implementation of the match suspension is suspended for a probationary period of one year,” the statement read.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If Folarin Balogun commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension shall be revoked, and the sanction enforced without prejudice to any additional sanction imposed for the new infringement.”<\/p>\n
FIFA’s decision was welcome news to\u00a0President Donald Trump, as his nation looks to win their first last-16 match at the World Cup since a 2-0 win over Mexico in 2002.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right and reversing a great injustice! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he wrote in a statement on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garcia was asked for his response to Trump’s comments, but insisted that his full focus remained on the task at hand, which was to beat the USA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We have to improve; we can improve our consistency during the game,” Garcia added.<\/p>\n
“We must reach the Belgian level that I am expecting from the kick-off to the final whistle. We need to be more consistent for the 90 minutes.”<\/p>\n
Belgium have won each of their last three World Cup matches against Concacaf\u00a0nations, one more than across their prior six combined (W2 D1 L3).<\/p>\n
Their only match against opponents from that region in the knockout stages was a 2-1 victory over the USA in the round of 16 in 2014.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read More<\/a>SoccerNews Editorial Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Soccer Rudi Garcia referred to FIFA’s decision to suspend Folarin Balogun’s one-game ban as something seen on “April Fool’s Day” ahead of their last-16 tie at the World Cup.\u00a0 Belgium face the United States at\u00a0Seattle Stadium for a spot in the quarter-finals, with the co-hosts boosted by the controversial return of striker Balogun. During their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":917866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[749,104916,2005],"tags":[10521,104915],"class_list":["post-917865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-decision","category-fifas","category-soccer","tag-decision","tag-fifas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}