Niall Harkiss

Trump on World Cup: Trump: All I did was ask for a review because I didn’t think it was a foul. And I think it would have been terrible if they wouldn’t allow, you know, a top player—maybe the best, maybe among the best players on the team—to play. I think it would have had a big stain,  How would you feel if we took Messi out? You know, “Messi, you ran into somebody.” Or we took Ronaldo out. “Ronaldo, you bumped into somebody. We’re going to take you out of the game.” Or Harry Kane. “Harry Kane, we’re going to take you out of the game, Harry, because you happened to hit somebody a little bit harder.” You can’t do that. If you would have taken him out, I think it would have really stained this incredible championship. We’ve got to have our best players, and Belgium has a great team, by the way. We have to have our best players, and they have to have their best players. If we win or we lose, it’s fair. Otherwise, let’s say we lost him and we lose the game—it would be a terrible thing. So I think they made a really brilliant decision. I think the referee’s call was horrible, and nobody talks about that. They talk about the red card like it’s fine. Nobody talks about the referee’s decision to issue the red card. I didn’t know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” This guy just holds it up: “OK, your best player is not going to play in the next game.” I said, “Wow, that’s a lot of power. That’s terrible.” But then I looked at his past, and it wasn’t so great.