Having returned to the White House in January 2025, Donald Trump will be central to the 2026 FIFA World Cup. His football/soccer links go back decades, via Saint & Greavsie, a possible Rangers takeover... and reports of a six-match stint as Wolves' youth-team goalkeeper!
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00:00When Donald Trump was re-elected as US President in November, pictures resurfaced from an edition
00:08of Shoot Magazine in November 1991, which sensationally claimed,
00:13Billionaire tycoon Donald Trump once played six games in goal for Wolves...youth team
00:20while his American Air Force father was based in the Midlands.
00:23I mean, certainly sounded like a good story, although quite how talented a goalkeeper The
00:28Don would have made is unclear, considering that I won't be making any jokes about the
00:34size of anyone's hands.
00:35He said I had small hands, actually I'm 6'3", not 6'2", but he said I had small hands, they're
00:40not small, are they?
00:42Although I will say, speaking as a goalkeeper, you do have to be good at building walls.
00:47We need to build a wall.
00:49Anyway, good story or not, Trump's father Fred was never in the American Air Force, so...bake
00:56news.
00:57Now, I'm obviously not an impressionist, but I am Adam Cleary, and here's a thorough investigation
01:02into all the times Donald Trump actually was involved with football.
01:07Because...journalism.
01:08Now to start, just weeks after that original shoot claim in the 90s, Trump was on UK TV
01:14screens presiding over the draw for the 91-92 Rumbelows Cup quarterfinals.
01:20This was the season when the competition went, how can I put this, a bit mad, bolting on
01:25the Rumbelows Sprint Challenge as well, where players from football league teams competed
01:30against each other in 100-metre sprint races.
01:34We can't use the audio for this, but rest assured you can literally hear the hamstrings
01:39pinging in this.
01:40The draws were screened on ITV's Saturday lunchtime St and Greavesy show, but the pair
01:45were in New York that weekend as Madison Square Garden was hosting the draw for the 1994 World
01:51Cup qualifying.
01:52If you recall, Graham Taylor's England drew the Netherlands and Norway, which...um...went...not
01:59great.
02:00Steady!
02:01David!
02:02Don't!
02:03Get round!
02:04No!
02:05Don't!
02:06Bloody!
02:07The programme editor Richard Wirth told us here at 442, I told Jim Rosenthal, why don't
02:12we get an iconic New York name?
02:14Let's find Woody Allen and do the draw in black and white, or Robert De Niro.
02:19Now neither of those two were available, but Wirth spotted Trump at a reception, and after
02:24a conversation with his English secretary, who recognised St and Greavesy, they asked
02:28if Trump could conduct the Rumbelows Cup draw at Trump Tower.
02:32For reasons that remain to this day between him and God, he agreed.
02:37It's an astounding bit of surrealist live art TV, as Trump has less than zero idea what
02:43is going on.
02:44I haven't seen a boardroom like this since I was in Doug Ellis' at Aston Villa, Greavesy
02:49quipped.
02:50And Trump, hearing the words Doug, Ellis, Aston and Villa for the very first time in
02:54his life, just laughed anyway.
02:57If there are any American viewers watching this who have access to the White House, please
03:00do let us know in the comments if the commemorative St and Greavesy mug is still kicking about
03:06in the staff canteen, because I'm guessing...it's not.
03:09Fast forward to Covid, you remember that, and Trump started to turn up at a number of
03:13British football grounds.
03:15Or he sort of did anyway, as fans made cardboard cutouts to fill empty seats and found it really
03:21funny to put the President's face on theirs.
03:23He turned up at Exeter, at Wigan, at Hibbs, and here he is as part of Hamilton Ackie's
03:28kebab promotion.
03:29He could though have turned up for real at Ibrox eight years earlier, as reports suggested
03:34that he was investigating the possibility of buying rangers at the time of their financial
03:39turmoil.
03:40Trump's mother was born near Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, and her son managed to
03:44show affection for the nation of Scotland by somehow upsetting every single person in
03:50it with his controversial development of the Trump International Golf Links course in Aberdeenshire
03:55in 2012.
03:56He would also later buy Turnberry Golf Club in 2014, which was somehow even less popular.
04:02However, in 2012 he deemed that Rangers' situation was simply too dire for a takeover,
04:08which tragically denied us all what would have been one of football's greatest moments
04:13when he was forced to ur-fired Ali McCoyst on live TV.
04:17We looked at it, seriously, and had to walk away, said an anonymous Trump source.
04:22It just didn't make sense to us, though they're a great club, amazing club, such a special,
04:28special club, normally you hear club, you think golf, I'm a very successful golfer,
04:32one of the best, but no, this is soccer, they call it football, some, some call it soccer,
04:37same thing, very sad, very sad, and again, I'm not an impressionist.
04:42Anyway, fast forward three years later and Trump was reported to be part of a group mulling
04:46over the purchase of Colombian outfit Atletico Nacional, partnering with Italian real estate
04:52mogul Alessandro Protto, who had previously claimed to be the inspiration for the lead
04:57character in Fifty Shades of Grey.
05:00In the assessments we'd been doing for several teams, we thought Nacional was the best, said
05:04another unnamed group spokesman.
05:06However, they were ultimately rebuffed, being told that Atletico was not for sale.
05:12And obviously, any chance of Trump owning a football club ended when he completed the
05:16entirely non-trivial challenge of being elected president in 2016.
05:20But it did lead to an opportunity for his football-loving son, Baron Trump, which is
05:26apparently his real name, who was a budding midfielder, joining DC United's youth set-up
05:31after the old man moved to Washington.
05:33The teenager was also spotted in the White House grounds, having a kickabout in an Arsenal
05:39shirt, which is just… surreal.
05:41Inevitably, in 2018, Trump invited DC United star Wayne Rooney and his wife Colleen to
05:49the White House.
05:50Yeah, he asked me to give his son some football lessons, revealed Rooney.
05:53However, Colleen's recollection of the occasion was rather less wholesome.
05:58We walked in and Donald Trump said to his son, you see, I told you all the soccer players
06:03get good-looking girls.
06:04I thought, you dirty bastard.
06:07Later on, Trump would have a quick round with Wayne, rather than with Colleen, and
06:11of golf, rather than… yeah, in what turned out to be a very busy course.
06:18We had Rudy Giuliani in the buggy behind us, then about 50-100 other buggies, all security,
06:25Rooney recalls.
06:26There was a boat in the lake carrying snipers, and there were snipers in the bushes.
06:30I was like, what's going on?
06:33Now, amusingly, a freak growth spurt meant that Barron developed into a very different
06:37kind of player to Rooney.
06:39He was taller than his 6'3 dad by the age of 15, and dubbed the new Peter Crouch, as
06:46footage emerged of his expert hold-up play in a game.
06:49Rest assured, if there was any footage of him doing the robot, we would have dug that
06:53out for you, so presume it never happened.
06:55Barron has since left DC United, oh no, and attends New York University, but plans to
07:01continue playing football.
07:02At 18, he's now 6'7, and Trump Sr. was quoted as saying, I told him you're going
07:12to be a basketball player, but he said, I like soccer dad, so you can't talk them
07:17into everything.
07:18But just to circle back to this Twilight Zone moment in 1991, Trump was very positive about
07:23the USA women's team, and even gave them a big shout out on Saints and Greavesy, the
07:28highest possible honour, but that of course wasn't the case a few decades later.
07:33Megan Rapinoe, you remember her, wasn't just a footballer, but also an activist who
07:38had previously kneeled during the US National Anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick,
07:43and spoken of her outright dismay at Trump's election.
07:46They didn't get on, you'll be shocked to hear, and in 2016 she told us, literally
07:52us, 442, I respect our democratic process, but it's tough, when you choose racism and
07:58bigotry and sexism and xenophobia and for it all to be so blatantly done.
08:03Then, midway through the 2019 Women's World Cup, a video emerged of Rapinoe saying she
08:10would not accept an offer to meet Trump at the White House if the USA won the tournament.
08:16I'm not going to the f***ing White House, she said, prompting the inevitable reaction,
08:22Megan should win first before she talks, tweeted Trump.
08:26Megan should never disrespect our country, the White House or our flag, sent tweet.
08:31Just two days later, Rapinoe scored against the host, France, and aimed her celebration
08:36squarely at Trump.
08:38She did, of course, win the World Cup and was named player of the tournament to boot.
08:42It's still a bit ridiculous to think about it, she told us, that someone would tweet
08:47a member of their own national team for the nation they're supposed to be leading during
08:52what we were trying to do.
08:54He's not the President of the United States, she went on to say, he's the President of
08:59Donald Trump.
09:00But then, four years on in Melbourne, Rapinoe missed a penalty as the Americans suffered
09:05a shock loss to Sweden in the last 16 of the 2023 World Cup.
09:10And Trump, a man who can hold onto a beef longer than Desperate Dan, posted the following.
09:15The shocking and totally unexpected loss by the US women's soccer team is fully emblematic
09:23of what is happening to our once great nation.
09:26This was, of course, on Truth Social at this point as he'd been kicked off Twitter, but
09:30anyway, many of our players were openly hostile to America.
09:34No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close, and then in all capitals, Woke
09:40equals Failure.
09:42Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to hell.
09:45Which is such a normal thing to say, isn't it?
09:49But I digress.
09:50To Russia and Qatar, many had hoped that the 2026 World Cup would be politics free, which
09:56is one of the funniest sentences I think I've ever written or said.
10:00Only time will tell how the relative chaos of a Trump administration will tally with
10:04the organisation of football's biggest showpiece.
10:08If the tournament kicks off, and I'm saying this now, without the President having threatened
10:12to ban America's historical and evil enemies like Iran or Canada, that'll be a good start.
10:19Give him his due though, Trump definitely cares if the World Cup is a success.
10:24Vladimir Putin was famously obsessed with it in 2018, and just 24 hours after that final,
10:30he proudly presented Trump with a World Cup football.
10:34The big man has also described Gianni Infantino as, you're gonna love this, a great friend
10:39and winner.
10:40The FIFA President has reportedly spent years trying to secure a White House meeting with
10:44Joe Biden, but visited Trump there in 2019, and they met again at the Miami Grand Prix.
10:50FIFA has a base nearby, you see, as does Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
10:54Must be the weather.
10:55The USA, Canada and Mexico secured joint hosting rights for the World Cup amid Trump's first
11:01presidency.
11:02He has submitted three supporting letters, that I bet he wrote himself, to Infantino
11:08and said with typical modesty, I was personally very responsible for getting that World Cup,
11:12it's going to be a fantastic thing.
11:15Infantino then not only invited him to record a video message for the Club World Cup draw,
11:19but also allowed his grandson, Theo, to pick the first ball.
11:23It was Palmeiras, as it turned out, after the 8-year-old said his favourite team was
11:27Paris.
11:28The return of the World Cup to North America in 2026 presents another great opportunity,
11:33in my mind.
11:34The draw for the group stage is expected to take place in December 2025, and unless I
11:39am very much mistaken, that is around the time of another League Cup draw.
11:43Possibly Sky could ask Don if he fancies another go, perhaps this time in the Oval Office?
11:49And please, if you would humour me, just picture it.
11:52Drawing the home teams for us today, we have the 45th and 47th President of the United
11:57States, Donald Trump, and drawing the away teams will be former Reading midfielder, Joby
12:02McEnough.
12:03Gentlemen, if you could get us underway.
12:04But yes, anyway, long story short, no, he never played four wolves.
12:10Goodbye, and have a nice day, is I believe the expression.