On July 6,(CEST), the Belgian FA officially updated its statement regarding the appeal in the Balogun case.

Official Announcement

Following its previous statement, the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) is now issuing a public clarification regarding a series of events that have transpired in the past few hours.

After learning through media reports that FIFA had withdrawn its decision to automatically suspend player Balogun, the Association immediately sent FIFA a letter requesting a copy of the decision to withdraw the sanction and a full explanation of the processing procedure, while clarifying the Association's position on the relevant applicable competition rules.

However, FIFA replied with only one letter, stating that the Association's letter was equivalent to lodging an appeal, that a match arbitration judge had been assigned to handle it, and that the Association had only a few hours to complete the appeal process. No other relevant information was provided.

According to FIFA's own competition regulations, for an appeal to be admissible, a formal decision document with full reasons must first be served to the appealing party. The Royal Belgian Football Association's current action was solely to seek a reasonable and compliant official explanation, yet FIFA unilaterally characterized our inquiry as an appeal and deliberately set a harsh time limit, which effectively ensured the appeal would be deemed inadmissible.

Throughout the aforementioned events, FIFA consistently refused to respond to the Association's reasonable inquiries.

Furthermore, during the match coordination meetings, FIFA deliberately removed the section on the rules for automatic player suspensions from the presentation. This content had been a fixed agenda item in coordination meetings for the previous four matches. The Royal Belgian Football Association has questioned FIFA about the reasons for this adjustment, both orally and in writing, but has still not received a reply.

This is explicitly stated here: As of now, the Royal Belgian Football Association has not received any formal decision document from FIFA regarding this incident, nor has it received any official explanation. Therefore, the Association has no choice but to object to the player's eligibility to participate in the upcoming match.

Regardless of the final competitive outcome of this match, the Royal Belgian Football Association is deeply dissatisfied with and concerned about the handling of the entire matter. In the coming hours, days, and even months, the Association will continue to defend its rights, uphold the core principles of sportsmanship and fair play, and protect the overall interests of global football.

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