The Club World Cup was a showcase for Donald Trump’s America

In an administration beset by self-inflicted chaos and personal feuds, there has been one gleaming constant at President Donald Trump’s side for much of the last four months. 

It was there when Trump promised to “wean off FEMA” and claimed that “in theory, you shouldn’t have any forest fires.” It was there when he threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act against “animals” in Los Angeles and when he claimed that the Biden presidency had been usurped by an illegitimate robotic pen and when a black-eyed Elon Musk claimed that he had been punched in the face by his son. It was there when Trump proposed re-opening Alcatraz as a prison for immigrants, when he claimed that the 2020 election was “rigged,” and when he said that he had released living people’s Social Security numbers in the FBI’s JFK files intentionally, because “if you do delete it…people are going to say ‘why did you delete it?’” 

There it was in March when Trump said he “was told” that people who had been indiscriminately sent to El Salvador “went through a very strong vetting process,” and that Democrats want “transgender for everyone.” You could see it over the president’s left shoulder as he floated war with Iran, occupation of California, and annexation of Canada. Sometimes it shared space with a big map that said “Gulf of America” or with some visiting luminary like Dr. Oz or NFL commissioner Roger Goodell or Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss. It has seen things you wouldn’t believe. It has participated in more high-level meetings than JD Vance. 

Oh, the things it might tell us, if the FIFA Club World Cup trophy could talk.

For much of his second term, the gleaming gold prize from Tiffany & Co.—which resembles the rings of Saturn or the logo of the Office of Nuclear Energy when unlocked with a specially designed key—has been Trump’s favorite prop in an increasingly gilded White House. He wheeled it out to a crypto conference. For a time, the trophy was even on display in the lobby of Trump Tower, where FIFA president Gianni Infantino recently opened a new office. On Sunday, after the soccer tournament came to an end, Trump even crashed the trophy presentation at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey to join the victorious players of Chelsea FC as they lifted the prize on the field. The gesture was Trumpian in its extreme—gifting to someone else a trophy that was never his.

In some ways, Trump’s embrace of the Club World Cup fits a familiar pattern. For years, autocratic regimes have used major international sporting events to present a more flattering image of themselves to the rest of the world, and international organizations like FIFA have been all too happy to lend a hand. About a decade ago, human rights campaigners coined a term for all of this: “sportswashing.” 

For countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, these big spectacles have served a variety of interlocking aims—to soften public perception, diversify their economies, and bolster their reputations as international powers. The revamped Club World Cup, which streamed for free on the Saudi-backed DAZN, was itself part of a broader Saudi effort to challenge the hegemony of European soccer while establishing the kingdom as a cultural superpower—a strategy that also includes its alliance with Trump in professional golf. 

It makes sense that Trump would gravitate to this kind of approach. He has a clear affinity for Gulf-style governance. For the president, these rulers are not just business partners, but also a blueprint. After all, he’s an aspiring autocrat with a de-facto royal family, a fondness for pay-per-view spectacles, and plans for his own sovereign wealth fund. It feels like a step down for the United States to have to shamelessly launder its reputation like a repressive petro-state, but it’s hard to deny that that’s where we are.

And yet, as a sportswashing exercise, the Club World Cup was akin to taking a polar-bear plunge in the Passaic River. The reputations of Donald Trump and the United States haven’t gotten any cleaner in the wash—the sporting event just got grimier by association. That’s really quite an accomplishment when you’re talking about FIFA. 

Instead of papering over its unpopular authoritarianism with a sparkling international spectacle, the Trump administration used the spectacle to draw more attention to its authoritarianism. It began even before the tournament kicked off, when Vice President JD Vance said—at a press conference to announce that the former Duke University golfer Andrew Giuliani would be in charge of preparations for next year’s men’s World Cup—that fans would be welcome from all over the world but would have to deal with Kristi Noem if they failed to leave when their visas up. It was a joke-like construct in a threat-like context. No one wants to be reminded of heavily armed men in masks roaming American cities with impunity when they’re planning a summer vacation.

Things went downhill from there. Ahead of the opening match, US Customs and Border Protection announced that its agents would be “suited and booted” and “ready to provide security” at opening-round games. A South Florida NBC affiliate reported that ICE would be working security at matches in Miami. Fans were warned to bring proof of legal status with them to the stadiums. 

Lest anyone accept that this was run-of-the-mill security theater, Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection even conducted an inspection of a yacht party in Miami, demanding crew members show their papers while the mayor of Miami-Dade and executives from Telemundo mingled nearby. DHS claimed this was all standard operating procedure, but it’s hard to accept claims that there was no intent to intimidate from an administration that is making Michael Bay movies about raiding swap meets.

The tournament itself was fine, if often a bit uncanny valley. While the soccer stars themselves traveled without a hitch, other international athletes—including members of Senegal’s national women’s basketball team—already have been barred from entering the country by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, while news outlets have documented case after case of soccer players being removed from the country by the president’s deportation force. 

“The entire world will focus on the United States of America,” FIFA’s Infantino said of the upcoming 2026 World Cup at the same White House summit where Vance joked about deporting soccer fans.

But maybe that’s not really a good thing. Trump never missed a chance to make the Club World Cup about himself—and to remind viewers at home just what exactly it means to do business with the US government in 2025. During an in-game interview with DAZN on Sunday, he claimed that the Club World Cup trophy that had been in his office would stay there, and that FIFA had simply made a new one to give to the players.

He was booed in the stadium before the match. After watching the final from a luxury suite with Attorney General Pam Bondi, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Trump lingered on the field until the victors wondered what was going on. “I thought he was going to exit the stage, but he wanted to stay,” Chelsea’s Reece James told reporters afterwards. 

Welcome to the club.