72 members of the European Parliament wrote to the heads of all 27 European football associations on Tuesday 14 July, calling for an investigation into the reversal by FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) of Folarin Balogun's suspension. 1 The European Parliament is the directly elected legislature of the European Union, and its members hold no authority over football's governing body, so the letter is a political demand rather than a legal one.
Balogun is an England-eligible forward whose red-card ban FIFA lifted after a reported telephone call from President Trump to FIFA president Gianni Infantino . The reversal cleared him to play against Belgium and drew an immediate line of protest, with UEFA calling it "incomprehensible" and Belgium's own appeal ruled inadmissible. The MEPs are now widening that protest from football's internal channels into the political institutions of the bloc whose associations run most of the game's biggest leagues.
The letter runs alongside a second governance track. The campaign group FairSquare has pledged to refer Infantino to the International Olympic Committee's ethics commission , a body FIFA does not control. Neither route can overturn the Balogun decision, but together they keep a case FIFA has declined to explain in front of institutions it cannot appoint or instruct.
