{"id":75773,"date":"2026-07-05T15:55:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T20:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/05\/white-house-lobbied-fifa-to-lift-folarin-balogun-suspension-for-world-cup-game-v-belgium\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T15:55:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T20:55:28","slug":"white-house-lobbied-fifa-to-lift-folarin-balogun-suspension-for-world-cup-game-v-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/05\/white-house-lobbied-fifa-to-lift-folarin-balogun-suspension-for-world-cup-game-v-belgium\/","title":{"rendered":"White House lobbied Fifa to lift Folarin Balogun suspension for World Cup game v Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p>US striker was shown red in last-32 match<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Fifa announced suspension of ban earlier on Sunday<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Belgian FA \u2018astonished\u2019 by decision<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The White House lobbied Fifa to lift the US striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s one-game ban for a red card received in the team\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jul\/01\/usa-bosnia-and-herzegovina-game-report-world-cup\">win over Bosnia and Herzegovina<\/a>, the Guardian understands, resulting in Sunday\u2019s stunning announcement that he would be available for the cohosts\u2019 last-16 clash against Belgium in Seattle on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>The decision gives the US a huge boost on the field as they attempt to reach the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2002. Balogun has been a constant threat for the US so far this tournament, and has scored three goals in three starts.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/football\/2026\/jul\/05\/folarin-balogun-red-card-suspension-lifted-usmnt-belgium-world-cup\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>US striker was shown red in last-32 match Fifa announced suspension of ban earlier on Sunday Belgian FA \u2018astonished\u2019 by decision The White House lobbied Fifa to lift the US striker Folarin Balogun\u2019s one-game ban for a red card received in the team\u2019s win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Guardian understands, resulting in Sunday\u2019s stunning &#8230; <a title=\"White House lobbied Fifa to lift Folarin Balogun suspension for World Cup game v Belgium\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/05\/white-house-lobbied-fifa-to-lift-folarin-balogun-suspension-for-world-cup-game-v-belgium\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about White House lobbied Fifa to lift Folarin Balogun suspension for World Cup game v Belgium\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}