What's funny is the citizenship status of the player he went to bat for:

Balogun was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Yoruba Nigerian parents.[7][8] His parents were living in London, and visited New York when his mother was seven months pregnant with him. Airline staff did not allow her to board the family's return flight to London due to safety concerns over the advanced state of her pregnancy, and Balogun was subsequently born in New York.[9] He returned to the United Kingdom with his parents when he was two months old and grew up in London.