{"id":558596,"date":"2026-07-20T06:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T06:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/558596\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T06:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T06:59:14","slug":"trump-and-infantino-booed-before-us-president-attempts-to-crash-spain-celebrations-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/558596\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Infantino booed before US president attempts to crash Spain celebrations \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> and Gianni Infantino<\/a> were booed as they took to the field for the World Cup<\/a> presentation ceremony before the US president attempted to gatecrash Spain<\/a>\u2019s victory party.<\/p>\n

Trump arrived at the stadium on Marine One, with the president\u2019s helicopter first flying over the stadium about 45 minutes before kick-off. He sat in a glassed-in section of luxury seats for the Spain-Argentina<\/a> match, along with Infantino. <\/p>\n

Other dignitaries and former players sat nearby, including Spain\u2019s king, Felipe VI; Canada\u2019s prime minister, Mark Carney; and Mexico\u2019s president, Claudia Sheinbaum.<\/p>\n

Trump was briefly shown on the video screens at the stadium after the US national anthem was played. There were scattered boos from some in the crowd but nothing like the hostile reception he has received at other sporting events during his presidency. <\/p>\n

However, when the US president and Fifa<\/a> president Infantino came on to the field for the presentation after Spain clinched victory, boos rang out around the stadium. <\/p>\n

The White House pool report said that ambient crowd noise, which had been sitting at about 78 decibels before their introduction, rose to 84 decibels when Trump entered the field. <\/p>\n

There were ugly scenes after the full-time whistle when Argentina\u2019s Leandro Paredes pushed Eric Garc\u00eda and then appeared to aim punches at Gavi while he was on the floor, with the Slovenian referee showing him a red card. <\/p>\n

Argentina\u2019s Cristian Romero snubbed Trump\u2019s handshake during the presentation of the runners-up medals.<\/p>\n

Argentina\u2019s players then kept their backs turned when Rodri was presented with the trophy by Trump.<\/p>\n

\"FifaFifa president Gianni Infantino (L) and US president Donald Trump at the New York-New Jersey Stadium. Photograph: Bradley Collyer\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

Then, after Trump presented Spain with the World Cup trophy, he attempted to stand with the team at the side of the podium as they celebrated before Infantino quietly ushered him away.<\/p>\n

It was a repeat of last summer\u2019s Club World Cup at the same stadium after Trump presented the trophy to champions Chelsea and tried to crash the celebrations to the bemusement of the players.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s appearance was the first time he has attended a match at this summer\u2019s World Cup, which the US has co-hosted along with Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n

Trump has made several appearances at sporting events since his re-election. Last year, he attended the Super Bowl, tennis\u2019s US Open, the Daytona 500 and golf\u2019s Ryder Cup. <\/p>\n

This year, he has attended several golf events, college football\u2019s national championship game and Game 3 of the NBA finals, where he was met with boos from the New York Knicks home crowd.<\/p>\n

Trump is the first sitting US president to attend a World Cup final on home soil. When the US hosted the tournament in 1994, Bill Clinton did not attend the game. The trophy was instead presented by Clinton\u2019s vice-president, Al Gore.<\/p>\n

Trump has a close relationship with Infantino, and called the Fifa president to lobby for a review of USA star Folarin Balogun\u2019s controversial red-card suspension before their last-16 match. <\/p>\n

Fifa did reverse Balogun\u2019s ban, but the political circus cast a pall over the US team, who exited a promising World Cup with defeat to Belgium.<\/p>\n

At the 2022 World Cup final, the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, joined Infantino to award the trophy to Lionel Messi and his Argentina team-mates. Vladimir Putin awarded it to Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 and France after their win at the 2018 World Cup in Russia. \u2013 Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino were booed as they took to the field for the World Cup presentation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[226962,969,2956,53114,61,60,230714,112,4018],"class_list":["post-558596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-argentina-football-team","tag-donald-trump","tag-fifa","tag-gianni-infantino","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-spain-football-team","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}