“I understand sports really well, really well. And that wasn’t a foul. That wasn’t even an infraction. That was two guys running full speed that happened to crash into each other. And this referee, who is a little bit suspect… I don’t like to create controversy, but very suspect. He made a call that nobody could believe. You know, even people on the other side, they said, ‘oh, we got lucky’. Wow. That’s very interesting.

“And he [Balogun] is our best player, or one of our best players, a very vital player. And he gave him a red card. I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t think it meant much. Then I started hearing that that means he can’t play in the next game. I said, boy, that’s a big, you know, if it happened to another player, it would have been unfair. But when they take your best player, or just about, and they say you can’t play, that’s very unfair. That’s you know, it’s one thing to penalise somebody for the game, but how do you penalise them for a game that hasn’t been played yet? It’s very unfair. You can’t do that.

“So yes, I asked for a review by Fifa. I spoke to a man who’s highly respected and by the way, whose level of respect has gone up tenfold. And he was good before this started. But, you know, he really pushed it in this country.”