La Liga chief Tebas says Balogun red card case the ‘most serious incident’ in football history
USA’s Folarin Balogun was sent off during his nation’s FIFA World Cup 2026 round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the red card was overturned, allowing him to play the following game against Belgium. | Photo Credit: AP
USA’s Folarin Balogun was sent off during his nation’s FIFA World Cup 2026 round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the red card was overturned, allowing him to play the following game against Belgium. | Photo Credit: AP
La Liga president Javier Tebas has described the suspension of U.S. men’s national team player Folarin Balogun’s red card at FIFA World Cup 2026 as “the most serious incident in the history of football.”
Balogun was sent off after a VAR check in the last-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina for planting his boot into the ankle of Tarik Muharemovic. However, FIFA later suspended Balogun’s red-card ban, with U.S. President Donald Trump saying that he had spoken to the governing body’s leadership regarding the incident.
“We have FIFA, which has overturned a red card because the president of a country called the FIFA president. This is the most serious incident in the history of football. I think that, for this to be resolved, the issue of governance has to be addressed clearly,” Tebas said at a summit organised by the players’ union FIFPro in London on Tuesday.
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Tebas used the Balogun incident to prove how football’s governing bodies are not paying heed to the the clubs, the domestic leagues and player unions.
“We are going to live through some important months in the world of football, but we must not repeat what happened with Infantino’s arrival, when Blatter was removed, with everything that happened, only to have different people with the same ideas. There needs to be someone who can devise a change in governance,” he added.
“When you are presiding over UEFA, FIFA or Concacaf, where your decisions affect many more stakeholders across the industry, the point is to reach an agreement. Consultation is not enough for me. They tell you their views, you raise your concerns, and then they go ahead and do what they want. That is not how it should work. That model has to change,” Tebas asserted
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