Vincent Oshana says Trump personally pushed FIFA to review Folarin Balogun’s red card

The PBD Podcast found the most 2026 possible soccer controversy: not a red card, not VAR, but whether Donald Trump can effectively phone the referee’s boss. Vincent Oshana says Trump personally called FIFA president Gianni Infantino to push for a review before Folarin Balogun’s suspension was lifted, which is either patriotism with a headset or a very loud reason every other country hates American exceptionalism.

This is the whole argument in miniature. The U.S. has its best scorer tossed on a red card the panel believes was accidental. U.S. Soccer appeals. Then, according to Oshana, Trump gets involved. Suddenly, Balogun is available against Belgium. On PBD Podcast, that sequence becomes less a soccer segment than a civics exam administered by guys wearing lapel mics.

He simply said, “Take another look at the bad call.” And they did.

Oshana’s defense is clean and convenient: Trump didn’t bully FIFA, he asked for review. That distinction matters if you’re trying to keep this inside the lines of normal sports administration. But sports fans are not stupid. They understand gravity. When the president of the United States calls the president of FIFA during a World Cup discipline fight, that is not the same thing as a federation lawyer filing another brief. It’s not a casual reminder. It’s the bat signal with national anthem backing vocals.

VAR by phone call

Tom Ellsworth is the one on the panel who sounds like he has briefly imagined being Belgian. He likes replay. He likes accuracy. He likes sports fixing a bad ruling. Then he hits the problem: the same move that feels heroic when your striker benefits looks rotten when the other guy’s president does it.

I’m just not sure I’m down with heads of state kind of weighing in a day after the game.

Patrick Bet-David pushes exactly that hypothetical, asking how Americans would react if China were hosting the World Cup, a Chinese star got a red card, and Xi Jinping called FIFA before the decision was reversed. Oshana’s first answer is not subtle.

Bomb them.

It’s a joke, sure. It’s also the segment’s accidental truth serum. The standard being proposed is not really about procedure. It’s about teams. If Trump calls and the U.S. gets Balogun back, that’s leadership. If Xi calls and China gets its star back, that’s corruption with cleats on.

The panel knows exactly what story it wants

Oshana is not embarrassed by the politics. He loves it. His read is that this is what Trump was elected to do, not in the abstract, but literally in the weird little pressure points of global power where a soccer suspension can become a sovereignty flex.

I love that he got involved. I love that the PRESIDENT’S CALLING. THAT’S THAT’S WHAT I WANT from an American president.

Adam Sosnick takes it further, framing Infantino’s choice like a geopolitical hostage negotiation: upset Trump or upset Belgium, Brussels, the European Union crowd. That’s funny, and it’s also the whole PBD worldview compressed into a soccer highlight: institutions say they have rules, but real power is knowing whose call gets answered.

The skeptical read is simple. The show doesn’t prove Trump caused the reversal. It presents the appeal, the reported legal pressure, and Trump’s call as a chain, then celebrates the outcome. That’s enough for a combustible podcast moment, not enough for a clean finding of causation. But as a political performance, it’s effective. Trump doesn’t need to be the referee. He just needs to be seen near the whistle.

If the claim is true, the next question is uglier than whether Balogun deserved to play. It’s whether every country now gets to bring its president into the appeals process, or whether that privilege is reserved for the guy whose calls FIFA can’t afford to miss.