United States president Donald Trump has said he wants the USA to host another World Cup on its own, without co-hosts Mexico and Canada, as the sport’s biggest tournament heads into its final weekend.
Speaking at a reception inside Trump Tower in New York on Friday (17 July), ahead of Sunday’s final, Trump said, “You should choose the United States of America again. This time, we will leave Canada and Mexico out.”
The USA staged 78 of the 104 matches at this summer’s tournament, including all 12 games from the quarter-finals onward.
The 2038 edition is the next World Cup without a confirmed host, and a gap of just 12 years would be unusually short by historical standards. But FIFA has limited its own options through its rotation policy. The 2030 tournament, marking the World Cup’s centenary, will be jointly staged across Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay, while Saudi Arabia hosts in 2034. That leaves North America and Oceania as the only continents eligible to bid for 2038 under FIFA’s current rules.
Trump also revealed that FIFA president Gianni Infantino had raised the idea of the USA and China jointly hosting a future World Cup.
Trump is due to attend Sunday’s final between Spain and Argentina at East Rutherford, New Jersey. He had already drawn himself into this tournament’s narrative after reportedly lobbying Infantino over American forward Folarin Balogun’s red card in the last-32 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
FIFA controversially lifted the one-match suspension to keep Balogun available, though the USA went on to lose 4-1 to Belgium, missing out on the quarter-finals for the first time since 2002.
“You made another great decision,” Trump told Infantino of the Balogun ruling. “You’ll never get credit for that.”
