Donald Trump has latched like a limpet onto the side of the 2026 FIFA World Cup and is refusing to budge. For its part, FIFA is just happy that the erratic president is on their side right now. After all, a huge influx of foreign tourists from across the world presents a potential immigration nightmare for ICE, so in an alternative world, it’s easy to imagine Trump wreaking havoc on their plans.
Anyhow, FIFA president Gianni Infantino took the World Cup itself to the Oval Office on Aug 22, doubtless hoping its golden charms would continue to soothe and impress Trump. Trump confirmed that the 2026 FIFA World Cup final draw will be held on Dec. 5, 2025, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C (and teased it’d soon be the “Trump-Kennedy Center”).
During the meeting, Trump was asked what his involvement would be, and raised eyebrows by jokingly saying he might be playing: “I may play…I’m a very good athlete. My son is a good athlete. A good soccer player. On the tall side for soccer…I may put on shorts, I look extremely good in shorts, and join the play.”
Trump: I may play…I'm a very good athlete. My son is a good athlete. A good soccer player. On the tall side for soccer…I may put on shorts, I look extremely good in shorts, and join the play." pic.twitter.com/W5dcsqwLl1
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 23, 2025
He WAS once a soccer player
Trump is very much not a “very good athlete” now but, to be fair, he was actually once a legit soccer player. For that, we have to head back to 1963 when Trump was attending the New York Military Academy. His yearbook record there lists him as being on the Varsity Soccer team in 1963.
That’s notable as soccer wasn’t a particularly popular sport in the 1960s and was generally considered an “immigrant” or “ethnic” activity due to its popularity among European and Latin American communities. I’m not sure how Trump ended up on a Varsity Soccer team or what position he played, but he was indeed a soccer player.
Regardless, when it comes to Trump and sport, we should always remember that he’s formulated his own theory of body energy that mandates laziness. Evan Osnos, quoted in the New Yorker in 2017, said: “Other than golf, he considers exercise misguided, arguing that a person, like a battery, is born with a finite amount of energy.”
From Trump’s perspective, we’re each born with a fixed limit to our physical activities. Exerting yourself needlessly runs down that clock and exhausts your irreplacable life force. Hit zero and it’s lights out for good.
The book Trump Revealed by Washington Post reporters Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher also laid this out:
“After college, after Trump mostly gave up his personal athletic interests, he came to view time spent playing sports as time wasted. Trump believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted. So he didn’t work out. When he learned that John O’Donnell, one of his top casino executives, was training for an Ironman triathlon, he admonished him, ‘You are going to die young because of this.’”
O’Donnell remains alive at around 79 years old, somewhat puncturing Trump’s theory. But c’mon, let’s face it, you don’t need to be a scientific genius to start poking holes in this seriously bizarre belief. Either way, Trump does no real exercise aside from golf. Whether that works out for him or not remains to be seen, but right now it’s not looking so good.
One last thing. As for him looking good in shorts? That’s up for debate.
