After the Balogun case, FIFA moves to rule out suspending automatic red-card bans

FIFA is moving towards changing its disciplinary regulations to prevent a case like Balogun’s from happening again at the World Cup. The proposal would take away the organisation’s ability to suspend the automatic one-match ban following a direct red card, according to a Daily Telegraph report. The amendment is under consideration; it has not been presented as having already been adopted.

The precedent is Folarin Balogun’s sending-off against Paraguay in the round of 16 at the 2026 World Cup. He would have had to miss the match against Belgium. Donald Trump, the US president, intervened to request a review of the sanction. FIFA subsequently decided to suspend it, allowing Balogun to play the next game.

The decision had been made by the chair of FIFA’s disciplinary committee, relying on Article 27 of the organisation’s Disciplinary Code, which allows disciplinary measures to be suspended. The proposed change would seek to remove that option for automatic one-match bans arising from direct red cards. The report describes the intended effect this way: “This amendment to the regulations would remove FIFA’s ability to suspend the automatic one-match sanction for players who receive a direct red card, as happened with Balogun at the World Cup.”

The proposal’s timing and the way it was presented have also fuelled debate. The report cautions that its late introduction could prompt renewed questions about whether the aim is to absolve football’s governing body and its president, Gianni Infantino, of blame in the Balogun case. It also says members of the governing Council were taken by surprise by the proposal, which was presented on the eve of their Thursday meeting in Zurich. The Council has 37 members; the item was not on the agenda published two weeks earlier, and a tense meeting was expected.

The controversy had already provoked widespread anger in football. UEFA called the decision an incomprehensible precedent that had crossed every red line, while Trump’s statements that he had intervened directly with FIFA’s president intensified the dispute. The proposed reform is framed as a way to close a legal loophole and ensure that automatic one-match bans cannot be lifted again. But the unexpected, last-minute way in which it was brought forward has itself drawn criticism within the Council ahead of the decisive meetings in Zurich.