REACTION to FIFA changing the rules that led to Florian Balogun’s red card reversal | ESPN FC

Name: REACTION to FIFA changing the rules that led to Florian Balogun’s red card reversal | ESPN FC
Uploaded: 2026-10-16T22:14:55+00:00
Duration: 4 min 27 s
Description: ESPN FC's host and reporter Gab Marosi review Infantino's comments at the FIFA Council. They argue he gave no real answers on the Balogun ban reversal, apologized only for how he handled the…

ESPN FC

ESPN FC breaks down Infantino's apology over FIFA privatization and the Balogun ban controversy

ESPN FC's host and reporter Gab Marosi review Infantino's comments at the FIFA Council. They argue he gave no real answers on the Balogun ban reversal, apologized only for how he handled the privatization push, and avoided an independent external audit; whether he is out of danger remains disputed.

Infantino gave no real answers on the Balogun ban controversy and only repeated his old line — He again said he received a request from the U.S. president to suspend Balogun's ban but did nothing with it and left it to the disciplinary committee; the guest says this did not address the key questions.
The handling of Balogun's ban was flawed because the disciplinary committee never met and one UAE official decided alone — The FIFA Council acknowledged the need to review procedures to prevent a repeat, which suggests the original process needed fixing.
Infantino's apology was only for the way he did it, not for the privatization plan itself — He apologized in a very Infantino way for his method rather than for the substance of the plan.
The push to privatize FIFA's commercial operations was completely wrong — Infantino did it without telling anyone, negotiated only with Josh Kushner's group, did not solicit other bids, and tried to rush it through.
Privatizing some of FIFA's commercial operations and bringing in strategic partners may not be a bad idea — He says the problem was mainly the process, not necessarily the idea itself.
There should be an independent outside group to evaluate and audit FIFA governance, not just address this privatization controversy — They wanted answers on how Infantino has been governing FIFA and argued the problem was not limited to this issue; the request did not pass.
Sheikh Salman is not an Infantino loyalist — The AFC was among the confederations that initially hammered Infantino along with UEFA and CONCACAF when the plans became public.
Infantino's allies see him as having dodged a bullet, while critics say he is not out of the woods yet — Allies treat the internal working group as a win; critics say the governance controversy is not over.

Gab Marcotti, Shaka Hislop, and Steve Nicol join Kay Murray on ESPN FC to discuss FIFA rule changes that led to Florian Balogun’s red card reversal at the 2026 World Cup and Gianni Infantino's apology to the FIFA Council over privatization plans. ✔️ Subscribe to ESPN Unlimited: https://plus.espn.com/ ESPN ESPNFC

Transcript

Stay up to date with everything that's going on in the world of football over on our website. Over here you can see Johnny and Fantino apologizing to FIFA council and avoiding key issues. So this week we did see the FIFA president apologizing about those selloff plans. Gab's writing an article about this himself. Gab Marosi back with us. We'll get to a few of the points here. I do want to ask you first, Gab, on the following Balagan situation here because we knew he was going to be asked questions about this situation. Did we hear any answers? >> Not really. I mean, he's he's he's saying what he said before, like he he got a request to uh uh suspend uh Balagan's ban, and we know who he got it from because he came and told us, the president of the United States, and he says, "I get these requests from politicians all the time, but I didn't do anything with it." Um it was handled entirely by the disciplinary committee. We now know the disciplinary committee didn't actually meet on this. it was one guy from the disciplinary committee uh gentleman from the United Arab Emirates who uh who made the decision entirely on his own. Um they weren't able to I mean really wasn't really the role of the FIFA council to go back and rewrite history but they did say we need to review these proceedings to make sure this doesn't happen again. So he handed it over to his legal committee saying let's review the procedures to kind of you know safeguard uh against this but you know the you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube as they say. >> No you cannot. Now as for the privatization plans apology what can you tell us about that? >> Uh in a very infantino way he uh he apologized for the way he did it. Um, and you know, let's remind ourselves he did this um, essentially without telling anybody. Um, and he only went out there, and I think this is just as bad. Uh, he only negotiated um, with one group, right? Josh Kushner's group. It's not like he went out there, solicited bids from other people and so on, and then he tried to rush it through afterwards. Yeah, that procedure was all wrong. the idea of uh perhaps privatizing um some of the commercial operation of of FIFA and getting strategic partners in to deal with the commercial side. Maybe that's not a bad idea to begin with, but you know, if this comes up again next time, we're going to have proper consultations. You guys will will will know every step of the way, and I'm not going to operate in this um kind of weirdo shady way. >> Was there anything else of note that we should know, Gab? Well, um, the big thing was, you know, people brought up the the other members of the council, the ones who are against them, the the resistance, so to speak. They said, "Well, wait a minute. Uh, we want answers on how you've been governing uh, FIFA. It's not just about this. We need to we want to send up uh, uh, set up an independent um, group to to to evaluate this from the outside, effectively audit this." Um, they did weren't able to get it through. He said, "No, no, we're going to set up an internal working group." Uh, the guy heading it is Shikh Salman from the um Asia Football Confederation, who to be fair to him, you know, he's not an infantino loyalist by any means. Remember, the AFC were one of the confederations that that initially hammered him along with UEFA and Konka um when news of the plans came out. Um, but these things are, you know, the these are proceedings that that they take a long time. they move very slowly. Um it depends I think Salman will take it seriously depends how much cooperation he gets internally. Um so in that sense you know people close to to to to Infantino are depicting this kind of as as a win or a or or a bullet dodged. People on the other side are saying hang on a minute infantino's not out of the woods yet. >> Thanks so much Gab. We did have more talk about this whole situation and heard the apology from Jenny Infantino on the latest edition of Football America's Shaka Herk and myself now streaming on the ESPN app. Little Herk Optical illusion check. >> Yeah, we will.