President Donald Trump indicated American football needs a rebrand in a rambling speech Friday during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at the Kennedy Center.
At the event, Trump received the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, which criticss have mocked as a made-up award to make up for him not winning a Nobel Peace Prize. At one point, the president suggested the United States should rename its traditional football to align with the rest of the world.
“When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, it’s again soccer in the United States, we seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of conflict with another thing called football,” Trump said, in comments flagged by The Daily Beast.
“But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called, I mean, this is football, there’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for that,” he added. “It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it. This is really football.”
The Beast noted that the rambling Trump oscillated between calling the sport soccer and football. He also boasted about record-breaking ticket sales.
“It’s an awfully nice tribute to you and to the game of football, or as we call it, soccer, but football, and that is an amazing thing. The numbers are beyond any numbers that anybody, even beyond what Johnny thought was possible,” Trump said.