When President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20, 2017, his ascendancy marked a new relationship between sports and politics.
The president’s infatuation with sports has been well-documented, from his takedown of WWE CEO Vince McMahon during WrestleMania 23’s “Battle of the Billionaires” to his failed attempt to purchase the Buffalo Bills in 2014. Trump’s previous sporty adventures were, while not unimportant, ultimately inconsequential for any professional athletes. Now, thanks to his rise to the Oval Office, Trump has since taken advantage of his position to gain significant influence over sports, especially in football and soccer.
While Trump’s first major foray into the NFL was his failure at purchasing the Bills, he has kept himself in political headlines related to the league ever since. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick famously kneeled during the national anthem in the San Francisco 49ers’ fourth preseason game to protest police brutality and the U.S. legal system’s unjust treatment of Black people. Kaepernick’s actions became a flashpoint and sparked strong feelings of both unequivocal support and fierce condemnation. During a rally in Alabama in 2017, Trump railed on Kaepernick and other players who protested during the anthem.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b***h off the field right now’,” Trump said. “Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!”
Despite widespread national backlash, Kaepernick continued to kneel throughout the season, which many theorize led to him being blacklisting in the league.
More recently, Trump has begun pushing for the Washington Commanders to name their brand-new stadium after him. While it is not unusual for Washington stadiums to be named after government officials — the Commanders’ current home is RFK Stadium — it is rare for a sitting president to push for a stadium to be named after them.
The NFL is not the only entity that has been affected by Trump’s persistent presence. The soccer world has recently been drawing a lot of Trump’s attention, which can be largely attributed to the 2025 Club World Cup, which occurred in the U.S., and the upcoming 2026 World Cup, which will be held across North America. Trump not only attended the final of the Club World Cup between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain, but presented Chelsea with the winner’s trophy on the field. There was an awkward moment between the president and the team when Trump broke all existing tradition and hoisted the trophy in the middle of the athletes. While Trump only photobombed the team’s photo op that day, the image of him in the center of the largest stage of club soccer is representative of his influence on global sports.
The current administration’s deportation policies have been casting a negative cloud on the international soccer events being held within the U.S. At the Club World Cup, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials were present at many of the games, and both fans and workers were questioned regarding their legal status within the United States. Recently, Trump announced that he is reconsidering allowing World Cup games to take place in cities with liberal leadership – including Boston, Seattle, and Los Angeles, all of which are sanctuary cities — under the claim that they are unsafe.
“If somebody’s doing a bad job and if I feel there’s unsafe conditions, I would call Gianni [Infantino], the head of FIFA, who’s phenomenal, and I would say, ‘Let’s move it to another location,’ and he would do that,” Trump said.
Trump’s routine involvement with national and international sports has spoiled any notion that politics and sports are not intertwined. While the athletic world has long been championed as a space where political divisions evaporate and community is built through sport, Trump’s tirades against politically-active players like Kaepernick and his hands-on involvement in U.S.-based international soccer competitions have demonstrated that sports and politics exist together on the most visible platforms, whether people like it or not.
