As this North American-hosted World Cup nears its conclusion, United States President Donald Trump expressed his desire for the U.S. to host another World Cup in the near future at a reception in New York Friday ahead of Sunday’s final.
“You should choose the United States of America again,” Trump said at the reception inside Trump Tower. “This time, we will leave Canada and Mexico out.”
The U.S. hosted 78 of the 104 matches in this summer’s World Cup, including all 12 matches from the quarterfinals on.
The 2038 World Cup is the next tournament that hasn’t yet had a host nation announced. While a 12-year turnaround would be quick historically for a country to host an additional World Cup, it’s a corner that FIFA has somewhat backed itself into with where it has assigned the 2030 and 2034 tournaments.
With the 100th anniversary 2030 World Cup set to be hosted between Africa (Morocco), Europe (Spain and Portugal) and South America (Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay) and the 2034 World Cup hosted in Saudi Arabia (Asia), North America and Oceania are the only continents eligible to host in 2038 under FIFA’s current rules for hosting.
Trump also shared that FIFA president Gianni Infantino has approached him about the possibility of the U.S. and China co-hosting a World Cup in the future.
Trump, who will be in attendance at Sunday’s final between Spain and Argentina at East Rutherford, N.J., inserted himself into the story of this World Cup when he reportedly contacted Infantino about the possibility of overturning U.S. forward Folarin Balogun’s red card from the team’s round of 32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
While FIFA did controversially suspend the one-match ban to make Balogun eligible, the Americans lost 4-1 to Belgium, failing once again to reach the quarterfinals for the first time since 2002.
“You made another great decision,” Trump said to Infantino of the Balogun decision. “You’ll never get credit for that.”
–Field Level Media
