As the Premier League’s Chelsea was on its way to a shutout victory at the Club World Cup final in July, President Donald Trump and FIFA President Gianni Infantino were deep in discussion at the New Jersey sports complex outside New York City on another matter: where the draw for next year’s World Cup would be held.
The high-drama spectacle decides which teams will face each other in the group stage of soccer’s most prestigious tournament, along with the schedule for competition. It was widely expected to unfold in Las Vegas, home to the 1994 draw when the U.S. last hosted the World Cup and a natural backdrop for glitz. But since at least March, officials had privately discussed bringing the draw to Washington, home to a showman president who regularly hugs the spotlight associated with sports.
So during that July match in the stadium that will also host the final game of next year’s World Cup, Trump and Infantino agreed to get going on holding the draw in the U.S. capital — namely, the Kennedy Center, another institution that Trump reshaped to his liking.
“During that Club World Cup final, there was a real seriousness to well, look, if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to do it now,” Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House FIFA task force, told The Associated Press. “That’s when talks heated up between the president and Mr. Infantino in terms of getting this done.”
The collaboration over the draw, slated for Dec. 5, illustrates the bond that has formed between Trump and Infantino, described by the U.S. president as “probably the most respected man in sports.” The relationship will come into even sharper focus as the World Cup approaches, jointly hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada.
Tickets are now open to fans as major questions hang over the tournament, including how welcome visitors from some countries will be in the U.S. amid its immigration crackdown. Even as the White House pledges openness, Trump has added another uncertainty by suggesting he could move games from cities he thinks are unsafe.
Trump and Infantino develop a deep alliance
Despite his affinity for sports, Trump is known more for his ties to golf and football than soccer. But his awareness of the sport was spurred in part by his youngest son, Barron, who is such a soccer fan that he had a net in the first lady’s garden during Trump’s first term.
Trump’s interest only grew when the U.S. won World Cup hosting rights in 2018. Nothing excites Trump like hosting a major event, and Giuliani recalled that, at the time, the president and his aides were almost wistful that he wouldn’t be in the White House when the tournament arrived, assuming he would be well into a post-presidency following an immediate second term.
Shortly after the U.S. was awarded the tournament, Trump hosted Infantino at the White House. Infantino, who was also serving his first term as FIFA president, made an impression by handing Trump red and yellow penalty cards, joking they could be used on the press.
The relationship flourished in 2020 as both men plotted their futures.
During a dinner that January at the global economic summit in Davos, near FIFA’s home in Zurich, Infantino called the U.S. president “my great friend.” Trump, always appreciative of a compliment, responded by inviting Infantino to a White House signing event for the Abraham Accords, which sought to normalize diplomatic relations between Israel and several Arab countries.
The ceremony happened as Infantino was aligning FIFA’s sporting and commercial ties with Saudi Arabia and its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It followed a pattern of Infantino, much like Trump, cozying up to autocratic leaders.
Infantino appeared to relish public meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin before, during and after that country hosted the 2018 World Cup. Visiting Putin at the Kremlin with a group of soccer greats during the tournament, Infantino said he felt “like a child in a toy shop” in Russia. He collected the Russian Order of Friendship from Putin the following year.
Infantino would later relocate to Doha ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, emerging as a strong defender of the tiny Gulf state that was fiercely criticized for its treatment of the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers needed to build essential stadiums, transport projects and hotels.
Infantino’s connections to Biden were far more limited
As the connection between Trump and Infantino deepened, Joe Biden dashed Trump’s hopes of staying in the White House. For the next four years, Infantino’s ties to Washington were far more limited. The two leaders had a brief meeting on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022, a fleeting moment FIFA captured with one photo on its website.
Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff also met with Infantino when he traveled for the Women’s World Cup in July 2023.
Preparations for the World Cup under Biden were under the radar by design, according to one senior official for that administration who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Even though the administration had its own World Cup 2026 task force, Biden aides were aware of sensitivities surrounding large gatherings so soon after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Biden White House was also careful not to overtly promote a relationship with FIFA, which had sidelined the U.S. Soccer Federation in its traditional role in coordinating a home World Cup. Instead, it negotiates individually with each of the 11 U.S. host cities on security, ticketing and other matters.
Infantino visited the White House while Biden was president at least once, meeting for about an hour in 2024 with then-national security adviser Jake Sullivan, an avid soccer fan. Biden officials emphasized to Infantino that they wanted to ensure the host cities ultimately benefited from holding World Cup matches and that the U.S.’s human rights values would be respected.
Trump’s return sets stage for a ‘MAGA’ World Cup
Trump’s disappointment about missing out on the World Cup would prove to be unfounded after he was elected to a second, nonconsecutive term last year.
Since that victory, Infantino’s embrace of Trump has been gushing. He promptly congratulated him the day after Election Day, was at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s South Florida club, during the presidential transition and had a prime seat at his January inauguration. Trump called Infantino a “winner” in a video played at the Miami draw for the Club World Cup in December, which was attended by daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Meanwhile, FIFA has set up shop at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where Infantino worked last month as world leaders gathered nearby for the annual United Nations General Assembly. Infantino and Trump met again last week in New York, along with first lady Melania Trump, according to the FIFA president’s Instagram account.
Infantino has teased the idea of Trump doing the draw himself, which Giuliani called the “MAGA-FIFA World Cup draw.”
“Just like a great opera, there will be high drama,” Giuliani said.
Infantino has had more public appearances with Trump than with any soccer officials from the sport’s heartlands of Europe and South America, according to the FIFA leader’s schedule and social media posts. He was late for his own FIFA Congress in Paraguay in May because he was with Trump and the Saudi crown prince in the Middle East, a move seen as disrespectful of his own voters and criticized by Europe’s soccer federations.
During Infantino’s most recent appearance at Trump’s side in the Oval Office on Aug. 22, he took even some fellow soccer officials by surprise when he gifted a gold replica World Cup trophy to the U.S. president, saying it was “for winners only.”
That handover was unexpected, according to one senior soccer official who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive dynamics. Even though it was a replica, the moment was still seen as a snub of World Cup tradition because Trump has held onto a trophy that is supposed to belong to the sport as a whole, not an individual person.
A White House official said the trophy remains in the White House’s possession.
No such offer was publicly extended by FIFA to Mexico’s President Claudia Scheinbaum or Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney. Infantino has not met with Carney this year and met Sheinbaum for the first time on Aug. 29.
The episode is a reminder of how Infantino can shift with the moment. The man who remarked in Qatar on the eve of the World Cup in November 2022 that “today, I feel (like) a migrant worker” — comments interpreted as solidarity with migrants — was laughing along with Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this year as they bantered about migrants being unable to scale the repainted wall on the U.S. southern border.
Infantino has framed his close relationship with Trump as “crucial” to the success of the World Cup, a massive operation that relies on expansive cooperation with federal, state and local governments. Trump’s suggestion that he could move the host cities was a reminder that Infantino is working with a famously impulsive president whose whims could expose FIFA to logistical havoc and legal jeopardy if he followed through.
Even without those threats, those involved with World Cup planning said the tournament’s stakes are high because it’s the first in a series of global sporting events hosted by the U.S., including the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“This needs to go well in order to show the world that if you want to have the best sports and entertainment events, you want to have them in the United States,” said Alex Lasry, CEO of the New York/New Jersey host committee. “I don’t think it’s unusual for a White House to be coordinating and be involved, and I don’t think it’s unusual for the heads of state and for the president to be excited and to be talking about a mega event coming here.”
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Dunbar reported from Geneva.
Politics8 years ago