A Fox News reporter lashed out at the "complete and utter mess" unfolding at the World Cup after President Donald Trump intervened in a FIFA ruling.
Fox News correspondent Jonathan Hunt was reporting live from Lumen Field in Seattle, describing the dispute surrounding FIFA's decision to lift U.S. striker Folarin Balogun's one-game red-card suspension — a reversal that came after Trump called FIFA President Gianni Infantino directly. The match is on Monday.
The suspension had been automatic, with no right of appeal, after Balogun received a red card in the U.S.'s 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina last Wednesday. A video review of the play led to the card.
"This is frankly just a complete mess, and it's a mess of FIFA's making at this point," Hunt said on Fox & Friends.
Belgium immediately protested the reversal. FIFA gave both sides until 8 a.m. Eastern Monday to make their case, a deadline Hunt noted had already passed by the time he was speaking.
"It is a complete and utter mess, and it's a huge distraction for both teams," he said.
"Belgium also, to be fair to them, they don't know how to prepare. So it's awful for both sides. And what is also absolutely terrible is it takes the focus off of football."
"And now you have this awful situation of a red card going into a kind of legal process," Hunt continued. "It's terrible for the sport. It's terrible for the World Cup, and it's terrible for the U.S. team."
According to CBS News and Axios, Trump called Infantino on Thursday. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House's World Cup task force, also contacted FIFA. The U.S. government provided additional evidence to FIFA's disciplinary committee.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that FIFA had reversed "a great injustice!"
"I didn't know that in the offices of FIFA the 5th of July was the 1st of April in Europe," Belgium coach Rudi Garcia said through a translator, in an April Fools' Day dig at the governing body.
The Union of European Football Associations said the decision "crossed a red line."
"Either way, it's going to be either very unpopular in Belgium or very unpopular in the U.S. It's a no-win situation for FIFA. Should never have come to this in the first place," Hunt said.
"It's going to be a spicy game tonight," the reporter predicted.
