
Trump will attend FIFA Club World Cup final at MetLife Stadium
The month-long tournament will draw to a close on Sunday when Premier League side Chelsea faces the winner of Wednesday's match between French club Paris Saint-Germain and Spanish powerhouse Real Madrid.
'I'll be going to the game,' Trump told reporters after he was asked if he would be attending the final in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025.
REUTERS
Trump's presence at the Club World Cup final was teased on DAZN by on-air personality Emily Austin on Monday.
The news of the president's planned attendance at the tournament final came a day after FIFA announced it would open an office inside Trump Tower in Manhattan and that the Club World trophy would be on display inside the building leading up to Sunday's final.
Trump was invited to the Club World Cup final by FIFA boss Gianni Infantino in March during a visit to the White House.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told reporters in early June that he had also invited the president to the final, but wasn't sure if Trump would be able to attend.
No matter where you are in the world, you can watch the FIFA Club World Cup for free on DAZN. All you need to get started is an email address. No subscription is required, but you will have to make a free account on the streamer to start watching.
DAZN also has premium, paid options available to enhance your viewing experience with HDR picture, Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound, and fewer ads. DAZN Premium plans begin at $19.99/month.
Murphy said he had extended the invite during a phone call with the president about the 2026 World Cup, but 'I'm not sure he could come.'
Trump has made several appearances at numerous major sporting events since he took office again earlier this year, including becoming the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl when he made an appearance in New Orleans to see the Eagles topple the Chiefs.
He also helped the NFL announce that the 2007 draft would be hosted in Washington, D.C.
In June, Vice President JD Vance attended a Club World Cup match in Cincinnati.
Joao Pedro of Chelsea scores to make it 1-0 during the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 semi-final match between Fluminense FC and Chelsea FC at MetLife Stadium on July 08, 2025 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
FIFA via Getty Images
Infantino has praised the Trump administration's support for the Club World Cup and the upcoming 2026 World Cup that's being jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico.
'We have received such a big support from the government and from the president with the White House Task Force for the FIFA Club World Cup [now] and for the FIFA World Cup next year,' Infantino said Tuesday.
The Club World Cup has been viewed as a dry run of sorts for next year's main event, which will feature 48 national teams an increase from 32.
MetLife Stadium is slated to host eight matches — including the final — during the 2026 World Cup.
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The Trump regime has come at the Ivy League broadly over diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. It has singled out Columbia specifically, leveraging accusations of antisemitism over the university's handling of protests against the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Trump's ICE has targeted student protesters, disappearing them into faraway facilities. Frankly, we will have gotten off lightly if 'Mamdani Once Claimed to Be Asian and African American' is the only hit the Columbia hacker manages to land with their stolen data The institution has not exactly been defiant about the attacks on its students — days after the ICE raid that took Mahmoud Khalil, the university expelled, suspended, or revoked the degrees of students who occupied a campus building last spring as part of a protest. This did not pacify the Trump regime, which has frozen $400 million of funding for Columbia University and is currently negotiating a settlement with the university. The timing of the hack, given the university's relationship with the Trump regime, raised my eyebrows. A hacker who is also a Trump follower might attempt to pressure Columbia with stolen data, perhaps via strategic leaks to major newspapers, in order to get it to capitulate to Trump's pressure campaigns. Who did the hacking and how did it happen? What was stolen, and where is it being stored? Is any of it being sold? What other schools are being targeted? How will this stolen information place pressure on Columbia? These questions all seem like fertile ground for reporting. It would be nice if The New York Times was interested in that story. But at the absolute bare minimum, when it ran its bizarre story about Mamdani's college application, it should have made the political motivations of the hacker clear to the reader. If it's true that the Times allowed itself to become the mouthpiece of an anti-affirmative action hacktivist, it is a travesty. But frankly, we will have gotten off lightly if 'Mamdani Once Claimed to Be Asian and African American' is the only hit the Columbia hacker manages to land with their stolen data. They may well be poised to do much more damage, and at a time when the university has already been brought to its knees. There are as yet no indications that the hacker has anything other than admissions data, which is something of a relief, given how much stuff there is at any given university. In fact, speaking of journalistic ethics: even though journalism does not have one single body that upholds professional ethics, The Columbia Journalism Review — housed at Columbia University, alongside a renowned journalism school and the prestigious Pulitzer Prizes — is widely acknowledged as a leading institution in setting and guiding norms in the profession. One might think of the Columbia hack as an indirect attack on journalists and journalistic institutions; it is possible the hacker has data that could be weaponized in a direct one. I am struggling to understand why I can find so little reporting on something that seems awfully newsworthy. Look, I'm the in-house finance nerd at the phones website; I rely on people who know how computers work to do reporting on hacks. But here we have a politically motivated hack of three universities, data from which has been used by the nation's most prestigious newspaper to attempt a hit job on a Democratic mayoral candidate, and precious little else. I get that we all have hacking fatigue — it feels like every other week, some major business gets rekt — but the Columbia University story is different. Is anyone going to treat it that way?