United States president Donald Trump brandished a red card to the gathered media after meeting with FIFA boss Gianni Infantino at the White House.
Infantino was a special guest in Washington, where the head of football’s governing body and Trump met to discuss the 2026 World Cup, which will be hosted by USA, Canada and Mexico.
FIFA’s Infantino came bearing gifts in the capital on Tuesday, the 48-year-old presenting Trump with a jersey and red and yellow cards among other tokens.
Infantino joked that Trump could use the cards during future meetings with the media.
“One more thing,” Infantino said. “You know in soccer, we have referees, right? And they have cards. Yellow cards and red cards. The yellow card is a warning, and when you want to kick out someone [shows the red card] … so this could be useful, I don’t know.”Trump replied: “That’s very good. I like that! I like that” as he pretended to throw a red card at the gathered contingent in DC.
The World Cup will return Stateside for the first time since 1994 and Trump said: “Soccer has come such a long way, I guess you call it football, but over here we call it soccer. Maybe someday they’ll change the name? I’m not sure, we’ll see. It’s working very well either way.
“I want to thank Gianni Infantino for being here – he’s the president of FIFA and a highly respected man.”
Trump continued: “Soccer has to be one of the fastest growing sports in the world and the job you’ve done is really fantastic Gianni.
“I have to also thank Bob Kraft. He originally called me and said, ‘what do you think about trying to get the World Cup to the United States?’ I said I’d really like it and we got Canada and Mexico involved.
“We’re going to have a great partnership and it’s going to be very special, I look forward to it.
“Let’s see, in 2026 I won’t be here [as president]. Maybe they’ll extend the term? If they don’t extend it the media is going to be very boring, they’ll all be out of business I guess.”