FIFA Caving In to Trump Highlights the Crisis of Institutional Independence

By now, the outrage over FIFA’s decision to allow U.S. striker Folarin Balogun to play despite receiving a red card should surprise no one. What should concern us is not merely that it happened, but that so many people still believed it could not.

President Donald Trump personally intervened with FIFA President Gianni Infantino after Balogun received a red card that, under the ordinary rules of international football, should have ruled him out of the United States’ Round of 16 match against Belgium. FIFA instead exercised extraordinary discretion and lifted the automatic suspension. Balogun played. The United States still lost 4-1.

The result does not make the controversy disappear. If anything, it clarifies what the controversy was really about. The issue was never whether Balogun would change the outcome of one match. The issue was whether FIFA’s rules could be changed when enough political pressure was applied.

The immediate reaction was predictable: outrage, disbelief, accusations of political interference, and warnings that FIFA had undermined the integrity of its own tournament. UEFA, the governing body of European soccer, condemned the move as “incomprehensible and unjustifiable,” and Belgium challenged the ruling.

Yet the real story is not football. It is institutions.

For decades, the international order has rested on a fragile but essential proposition: that institutions matter because they constrain power rather than simply reflect it. Increasingly, however, courts, multilateral organizations, universities, regulators, and even sporting bodies appear willing-or compelled-to bend their own rules when confronted with sufficient political pressure.

Trump did not invent this trend, but he has become one of its most visible champions. Throughout his political career, he has treated institutions less as independent bodies with their own legitimacy and more as instruments to advance political objectives. Those who cooperate are rewarded. Those who resist become enemies.

His battle with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is a clear example. The disagreement is not simply about interest rates. It is about whether an institution expected to exercise independent judgment can remain legitimate in the eyes of a president who wants alignment, loyalty and compliance. When Powell resisted, he was not treated as an independent official doing his job, but as an obstacle.

The same pattern has appeared elsewhere. Inspectors general have been dismissed. Career officials have been attacked. Prosecutors and judges have been denounced, transferred or terminated when their decisions displease the president. Universities have been threatened with loss of funding over ideological disputes. International bodies are respected when they produce desired outcomes and condemned when they do not.

Viewed in that context, FIFA is not an outlier. It is simply the latest institution confronted with a familiar choice: uphold its rules or accommodate power.

To be clear, Trump did what powerful political leaders often do. He reportedly sought to influence an institution to produce a result favorable to his country. The more troubling question is why FIFA appeared willing to accommodate him.

That question inevitably leads to Gianni Infantino.

For years, Infantino has cultivated close relationships with powerful political leaders. His relationship with Trump has drawn particular scrutiny. Infantino has praised him, supported his Nobel Peace Prize nomination, presented him with FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize, and repeatedly blurred the line between sporting diplomacy and political alliance.

The Balogun decision, then, was not necessarily a departure from FIFA’s recent trajectory. It may have been its logical conclusion.

This World Cup was already shaped by politics before the Balogun affair. Iranian players and officials faced restrictions. Fans from several countries struggled with entry. Visa issues affected officials and supporters. Diplomatic tensions repeatedly intruded on a tournament FIFA insists should remain above politics.

Watching this World Cup firsthand, it became increasingly clear that football no longer exists in isolation from global politics. That reality is hardly new. The more troubling development is when politics ceases to shape the atmosphere around the game and begins to shape the application of its rules.

Every competition depends on one simple premise: the rules apply equally to everyone. Once exceptions are made for the powerful, the competition is no longer governed by rules but by influence.

The same principle underpins every credible institution. Courts lose legitimacy when powerful states comply only when judgments suit them. Central banks lose credibility when monetary policy yields to political pressure. Universities lose public trust when academic independence gives way to ideological demands. Sporting bodies lose authority when their rules become negotiable.

Institutions rarely collapse overnight. They erode gradually, as exceptions become routine, discretion replaces principle, and independence gives way to political expediency.

The United States lost to Belgium despite Balogun’s reinstatement. That result will soon be forgotten. The precedent may not.

The real lesson of the Balogun affair is not that Trump reportedly sought to influence FIFA. It is that FIFA appeared willing to demonstrate that its rules, too, were negotiable.

That should concern far more people than football fans. The strength of any institution lies not in the power it wields, but in the confidence that its rules apply equally to everyone. Once that confidence erodes, so does the institution itself.

Faisal Kutty is a professor of law at Southwestern Law School, affiliate faculty at the Rutgers Center for Security, Race and Rights, and a contributing editor for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.

2026 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.

This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 5:10 AM.