The China Mail - Folarin Balogun affair -- Who said what

Balogun is key to the World Cup co-hosts' hopes of beating Belgium later on Monday in their last 16 match and is now free to play after a FIFA disciplinary committee suspended the ban for a year.

AFP Sport highlights the pick of the reaction:

"Thank you to FIFA for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!" -- Trump on his Truth Social platform.

"I asked for a review because I didn't think it was a foul. All I did was ask for a review, I didn't say you have to do this." -- Trump to reporters at the White House.

"It's a fair decision because it should have never been a red card. It's not that we are victims, but we are not the bad men, the mean ones here." -- US coach Mauricio Pochettino.

"No alternative but to challenge the player's eligibility for the upcoming match." -- A Belgian Football Association statement on Monday without specifying who they were addressing regarding the appeal.

"Yesterday's decision to suspend for a probationary period of a year the implementation of the one-match automatic suspension following the red card issued to the player Folarin Balogun crossed a red line." -- UEFA releases a blistering statement attacking the decision.

"We express our disbelief at such an unprecedented, incomprehensible and unjustifiable decision." -- UEFA

"If a phone call is really the reason for this incomprehensible decision, it would be a blatant violation of the most basic rules of football and sport. That would be very serious. How could FIFA still credibly plead fair play?" -- Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot.

"Influencing sporting decisions would undermine the autonomy of sport." -- European Union Commissioner for Sport Glenn Micallef.

"I didn't know that at the FIFA World Cup, the 5th of July is now the 1st of April, and that it's April Fool's Day." -- Belgium coach Rudi Garcia referring to the date of the decision.

"Where to draw the line is the question I ask. Where does this end now? It's my question, I don't have an answer." -- England coach Thomas Tuchel, who had a player sent off in the epic last 16 victory over Mexico.

"This is our game, not theirs... If Trump and Infantino really worked this all out between themselves, that's crazy. It calls everything into question...These two individuals, neither of whom has a clue about football, shouldn't have anything to do with it." -- Jurgen Klopp, former Liverpool manager and favourite to be the next Germany coach, does not hold back.

"Objectively speaking it is an extremely dangerous political precedent." -- Giovanni Malago, recently elected president of the Italian Football Federation.

T.Wu--ThChM