EU lawmakers call for probe of FIFA boss over Trump contact before US-Belgium match

Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Dozens of Eu­ro­pean law­mak­ers are gath­er­ing sup­port to launch an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment of FI­FA boss Gi­an­ni In­fan­ti­no over his in­volve­ment in the de­ci­sion to per­mit U.S. strik­er Fo­lar­in Ba­lo­gun to play de­spite an ear­li­er red card.

Ba­lo­gun was shown a red card dur­ing the U.S. vic­to­ry over Bosnia-Herze­gov­ina on Ju­ly 1, which nor­mal­ly would make him in­el­i­gi­ble to play in team’s next game, but FI­FA lift­ed his sus­pen­sion for a match on Mon­day af­ter U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump in­ter­vened with In­fan­ti­no on be­half of the 25-year-old strik­er.

Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment law­mak­ers Bar­ry An­drews, Lara Wolters and Niels Fuglsang said in a joint state­ment that FI­FAs de­ci­sion to “change the rule on red card sus­pen­sions mid-tour­na­ment is a dis­grace and a per­ver­sion of jus­tice.”

“Once again, we’ve seen In­fan­ti­no and FI­FA sur­ren­der to the de­mands of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion,” the state­ment said.

The law­mak­ers are ask­ing the na­tion­al foot­ball as­so­ci­a­tions of the EU coun­tries to spur the FI­FA Ethics Com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate In­fan­ti­no and whether pres­sure from the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion was a fac­tor in the lift­ing of the sus­pen­sion, as well as “oth­er po­ten­tial breach­es of po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty” like award­ing Trump the FI­FA Peace Prize.

FI­FA has said the lift­ing of the sus­pen­sion was a de­ci­sion of a dis­ci­pli­nary com­mit­tee

The law­mak­ers said that 35 col­leagues have so far signed the let­ter.

“The beau­ty of sport is that it is based on im­par­tial and trans­par­ent rules. When In­fan­ti­no al­lows po­lit­i­cal pres­sure to de­ter­mine who gets to play, this sense of fair­ness goes out the win­dow,” they said. —BRUS­SELS (AP)