Trump floats signing executive order mandating soccer be called ‘football’ in US at FIFA Club World Cup

President Donald Trump was in top form at the FIFA Club World Cup on Sunday while interacting with reporters.

The president was invited to the FIFA final at MetLife Stadium by longtime friend and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, where he watched Chelsea FC beat Paris Saint-Germain FC in “a bit of an upset.” Despite the match being a let-down for Trump, he said he had fun watching soccer gain popularity in the United States and is hopeful that it could eventually match the standing it enjoys on the world stage.

At one point, a reporter suggested to the president that he sign an executive order officially renaming the sport of soccer to “football,” as it is called in most other places in the world.

“I think we could do that,” Trump said to DAZN, lighting up. “[The US] is doing very well on the other stage, on the political stage, on the financial stage. I was just in Saudi Arabia, I was in Qatar, I was in the UAE. Here we have Qatar, you know, the big presence they have, but you have all of the leaders, and then you look at NATO, all of the leaders said, ‘A year ago your country was dead, and now you have the hottest country in the world.’”

“There’s a lot of truth to that. We were doing very badly as a country in an incompetent administration, and now we have a hot country. It’s really hot. And I think the soccer is going to be hot here too,” he continued.

He had the time of his life on Sunday, handing the winning team the Club World Cup Trophy and joining in on their celebrations.

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(Video Credit: Diario AS)

Trump remains optimistic that boosting the global interest in sports will help unify people across the globe.

“[Sports] is about unity, a lot of getting together, a lot of love between countries. I guess this is probably the most international sport, so it can really bring the world together.”