“I didn‘t know what the hell a red card was. When I found out, I said, ‘You gotta be kidding.‘ This guy just hands up — OK, your best player is not gonna play next week… 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.“
Trump described FIFA boss Infantino as “a smart, tough man“ whose standing he said has risen because of his work on the tournament, and repeated that the sport needs its best players competing.
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Trump takes credit
Shifting to the bigger picture, Trump took credit for bringing the 2026 FIFA World Cup to North America.
He said he personally secured the tournament for the United States, with portions also awarded to Canada and Mexico. “I got him to do it,“ Trump said, referring to the World Cup. “It was not Biden. Biden was asleep. I got him to do it.“
He also claimed credit for helping bring the Olympics to the United States and expressed pride in both achievements, even though he noted he may not be in office when the events take place.
“I’m so proud of it,“ Trump said. “The beautiful thing about what I did is I ran. I never thought of it and then all of a sudden I realised, you know, I just got the Olympics, and I totally got that myself, and I just got FIFA. I got that myself.“
Trump said he initially wondered whether fans would show up for the World Cup in the US but has been surprised by the overwhelming response. “I said, Gianni, is anyone gonna show up?“ he recalled. “If you would have said to any very smart of these people that the numbers they’re doing now would be happening, they’ve never seen anything like it.“
The US president also pointed to football’s surging popularity in the US, where it has traditionally not been a mainstream sport.
Trump claimed recent viewership figures are “4 times more successful“ than expected.
He said producers told him last night that the US-Belgium game is projected to draw a minimum of 50 to 60 million viewers — numbers he described as approaching Super Bowl territory.
“We have a game tonight and they think they‘re projecting a minimum of 50 million people watching a game we call it soccer,“ Trump said. “It‘s called football, I guess, but we can’t really call it football because it gets a little confusion. So yeah, you call it soccer. We’re the only ones that do that.“
Meanwhile, FIFA rejected Belgium’s letter seeking a copy of the decision to make Balogun eligible for their World Cup clash after treating it as an inadmissible appeal, the Royal Belgian Football Association (RBFA) said.
The RBFA said it is challenging Balogun’s eligibility after FIFA removed the automatic player suspension section from a pre-match presentation without explanation despite repeated requests.
