After the club World Cup, US President Trump also wants to take advantage of the 2026 World Cup. A powerful friendship with men should help him that is second to none.
Julian Buhl reports from New York
No, Donald Trump cannot resist this temptation. The platform that offers the final of the club World Cup on Sunday afternoon (3 p.m. local time/9 p.m. CET) in the Metlife Stadium in New Jersey is too great. In addition to the 82,500 spectators in the stadium, the entire (football) world will also look at this final between Paris Saint-Germain and FC Chelsea-at least the hope of FIFA and its president Gianni Infantino, who organize the tournament.
And so it was hardly surprising that Trump already announced his coming. “I will go to the game,” said the head of state of the United States on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting in the White House. As the “New York Times” reports, one of them asked him if he would also bring the trophy. Trump replied with a grin: “Yes, I will be handed over. I have her in my office.”
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In fact, the club World Cup trophy has been on his desk in the Oval Office-perfectly staged in the past few weeks and months, even while he signed decisions that have determined world politics. This certainly included those who concerned the Russian attack war against Ukraine (you can read more about this here). Or the US attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran (read more about this here). “War and Games” could be the heading of the agenda that the most powerful man in the world recently followed.
FIFA and human rights expert Sylvia Schenk critically observed that such pictures from the White House went around the world where the FIFA Cup was always omnipresent. This differed from “what many other rulers or whoever has ever done from such large events,” said Schenk in an interview with T-online.
Sylvia Schenk (73) is the head of the Sport Working Group at Transparency International Germany. She was a member of the FIFA Human Rights Advisory Board until the end of 2020 and works on the Human Rights Advisory Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The former competitive athlete took part in the 1972 Olympic Games as a athlete.
But what goals Trump pursues and specifically with the club World Cup and the “right” World Cup 2026 in the USA, Canada and Mexico? “Trump tries to use the World Cup for himself,” said Schenk. One could not deny that Trump was a sports fan. It was also he who brought the award of the 2026 World Cup to North America in his first term in 2018.
After returning to the presidential office, he will now also host the big tournament with the United States as the main host in the coming year. Out of pure love for sport? No, says Schenk. Above all, Trump also knew “how to take advantage of the sport.” In certain voters and population circles, this will help him, Schenk continues: “Since his survey values are crashing, he may need it even more urgently.”
In addition to sport, Trump has another great passion: entertainment. He loves to combine both – and as a master of the staging, which he is also known in politics, he dominates it like no other. His guest appearances in the American show sport of Wrestling, in which he sometimes even appeared in the ring, for example to explore the “Battle of Billionaires” (in German: “Fight of Billionaire”), and brought his hair into the game as a bet, are legendary.
His appearances in the area of the club World Cup, which is only the dress rehearsal and overture for the right World Cup, are a foretaste of what can be expected from him in the coming year. Because that was just the beginning.