Spain lifted the World Cup. Donald Trump was standing right next to them when they did it.
The US president lingered on the podium as the Spanish players prepared to celebrate their second-ever World Cup title, apparently shaking off FIFA president Gianni Infantino's attempts to usher him away. Gold confetti cannons fired into the air. Trump was still there. Infantino eventually maneuvered himself and Trump directly into the path of the falling confetti — the most polite way the FIFA chief apparently knew to move the most powerful man in the world off someone else's trophy photo.
It was an absurd visual end to a tournament that Trump had, for weeks, treated as a personal showcase.
The Balogun affair defined the tournament's dark streak
The low point came earlier in the competition. After Folarin Balogun — the USMNT's leading scorer — received a red card against Bosnia in the round of 32, he faced an automatic one-game ban that would have ruled him out of a last-16 tie against Belgium. FIFA then made the extraordinary decision to suspend that ban for a one-year probationary period. The timing wasn't subtle: Trump had already spoken directly with Infantino and "urged him to review the play."
"I didn't tell him what to do," Trump said. He also called it a "stain" on the tournament if Balogun sat out. The US lost to Belgium anyway, but the damage to FIFA's credibility was already done. Governing bodies do not recover quickly from the perception that red cards are negotiable depending on which president makes a phone call.
The Infantino-Trump relationship was conspicuous long before kickoff. FIFA rented office space in Trump Tower. The World Cup draw was relocated to Washington at Trump's urging. Infantino handed Trump FIFA's inaugural peace prize at the Kennedy Centre — an award with what was described charitably as a "murky selection process" — and critics read it plainly as institutional flattery toward a government FIFA needed onside.
A preview nobody wanted to miss
This wasn't even Trump's first act of this kind. At last year's FIFA Club World Cup final at MetLife Stadium, he took the field for Chelsea's medal ceremony after their 3-0 win over PSG, pumped his fists to loud boos, and then stood in the middle of the trophy lift as Chelsea's players exchanged puzzled looks around him.
Sunday was that moment, scaled up to the biggest stage in football.
Trump was booed loudly as he entered the field after the final. He received what reporters generously called a "mixed response" when shown on the big screen after the national anthem. He told journalists he thought Spain played better, called it a "close match," and said he'd already suggested to Infantino that the US should host again — and do it "while I'm around."
Spain won their second World Cup. Their players celebrated beneath a shower of gold confetti, flanked by the American president, while the FIFA chief tried to gently relocate him anywhere else on the stage.
"We have to do this again," Trump said, "and we have to do it while I'm around."
That quote should follow Infantino everywhere for the next four years.
