United States President Donald Trump was booed loudly by fans at Sunday’s World Cup final when he walked onto the field at MetLife Stadium alongside FIFA president Gianni Infantino before taking part in the post-game trophy ceremony.
Trump, who watched Spain’s 1-0 victory over Argentina alongside Infantino in a suite, waved to the crowd, but as cameras cut to him, boos and whistles began to drown out the music filling the stadium. They were audible on the television broadcast and even more so in the stadium.
Prior to the match, Trump was shown twice on the video board, immediately before and after the U.S. national anthem, but did not draw much of a reaction. He was later shown in the suite getting a chance to touch the World Cup trophy during the first half of the match.
Trump has attended many sporting events throughout his two presidential terms or while campaigning, and has drawn a range of receptions. When he became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl in 2025, three weeks after his inauguration, he received a mix of cheers and boos.
At college football games in so-called red states — states where most voters lean Republican — Trump has often been cheered. He has also been a favorite among fans of combat sports, and has been feted by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), whose president, Dana White, is a longtime ally.
But at other events, a majority of fans have jeered him. Most recently, he was booed by New York Knicks fans at Game 3 of the NBA finals. He has also been booed at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, and at professional baseball and football games in the Washington, D.C., area.
Trump assisted in handing out the medals to both teams, including to Spain’s Lamine Yamal. (Odd Andersen / AFP via Getty Images)
When he attended the U.S. Open men’s singles final last year, the United States Tennis Association asked broadcasters to censor the crowd’s reaction, according to a memo reviewed by The Athletic. But ESPN and ABC ultimately did not mute the jeers.
Trump is famously sensitive to how the public perceives his popularity. It is perhaps one reason that he did not appear at any 2026 World Cup games prior to the final. All five U.S. men’s national team games were held on the west coast, in greater Los Angeles, Seattle or the Bay Area, all Democratic strongholds. In the 2024 election, Trump lost California by more than 20 percentage points, and lost Washington state by more than 18 percentage points, two of his heaviest electoral defeats.
In fact, of the 11 American stadiums hosting World Cup games, only two are situated in counties where Trump received a greater share of the 2024 vote.
MetLife Stadium, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey, is in Bergen County, where voters went narrowly (50.5% to 47.1%) for Trump’s challenger, Kamala Harris. But most nearby counties — Hudson and Essex in New Jersey, and Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester in New York — went for Harris by a margin of more than 20 percentage points.
Although Trump was born in Queens, the area is hostile territory for him, and especially hostile when populated by soccer fans, who tend to skew liberal.
At last summer’s Club World Cup final, Trump was also booed by an apparent majority of fans who reacted when he was shown on video boards at MetLife Stadium.
At the time, 52 percent of Americans disapproved of Trump’s performance as President, while 44 percent approved, according to a daily average of polls conducted by dozens of different organizations and compiled by The New York Times. Since then, he has grown increasingly unpopular. In late May, his disapproval rate hit 60 percent, and currently sits at 58 percent, compared with 39 percent approval.
Despite Trump’s divisiveness, FIFA president Gianni Infantino has made him a central figure of the 2026 World Cup. The two first met in 2018, soon after the U.S., Canada and Mexico were awarded the right to host this tournament. They built a relationship that Infantino has said was crucial to the organization of the World Cup, but that both have also since described as a friendship.
The friendship culminated with Trump calling Infantino earlier this month to ask for a review of U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s red card, which, a few days later, was essentially overturned. Infantino then hosted Trump at a reception this past Friday at Trump Tower in Manhattan, where FIFA last year opened an office.
Infantino and Trump’s friendship was the topic of much discussion around the 2026 tournament. (Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
On Sunday, Trump then attended his first World Cup game, the final. His presence required all fans and attendees to wade through increased layers of security. It also led local activists to organize a protest of Trump, Infantino, and corruption in sports and politics generally; they handed out specially-designed red cards to fans at various points en route to MetLife Stadium, and asked fans to raise the red card as Trump and Infantino present the World Cup trophy after the match.
Trump took part in the post-match ceremonies, as leaders of host countries have done in the past, alongside Canada prime minister Mark Carney and Mexico president Claudia Sheinbaum, and as he did at last year’s Club World Cup final.
Speaking to Fox this weekend as the final approached, Trump celebrated the success of this World Cup, and requested that FIFA bring it back to the United States “immediately.” (The next two men’s World Cups, in 2030 and 2034, are already assigned to Spain/Portugal/Morocco and Saudi Arabia, respectively. And the 2031 women’s World Cup is already destined for the U.S.)
