Donald Trump stood at the first tee at Medinah Country Club on Sunday 27 September, told the gallery that “our country is doing great, better than ever before,” and then pre-empted the coverage of his own welcome.
“You know, the fake news media will say I got a very bad reception,” he said.
A chorus of “USA, USA, USA” drowned the scattered boos, “four more years” chants greeted him on the way out, and he returned later that day to hand the Presidents Cup to US captain Brandt Snedeker after the American team’s 17-13 comeback win, their 11th straight Presidents Cup title, the Chicago Sun-Times reported from Medinah.
It was one stop in a year of sports appearances that Front Office Sports has described as more extensive than those of any modern US president. Two set-pieces defined the summer, five weeks apart.
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UFC on the South Lawn, boos at MetLife
On 14 June the UFC staged Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn, the first professional sporting event ever held on the grounds of the presidential residence. Justin Gaethje stopped the previously unbeaten Ilia Topuria after the fourth round to take the UFC lightweight title, Topuria’s corner refusing to send him out for a fifth.
Five weeks later, on 19 July, Trump broke with FIFA convention by joining Gianni Infantino on the pitch to hand the World Cup trophy to Spain, who had beaten Argentina 1-0 after extra time in the final at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford.
The reception was not the one he had hoped for. He first appeared on the stadium screens near the end of Jennifer Hudson’s national anthem performance, prompting boos, with further negative reactions as he and Infantino walked to the platform, Yahoo Sports reported.
Spain captain Rodri lifted the trophy. Trump stayed on the platform beside the Spanish players as they began to celebrate, until Infantino moved him to the side for the lift.
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Norway files its complaint
The World Cup appearance has carried a longer tail than the booing. On 6 October the Norwegian Football Federation filed three formal complaints to FIFA’s Ethics Committee and its Governance, Audit and Compliance Committee, alleging potential abuse of power and conflict of interest by Infantino, Al Jazeera reported.
The three strands cover Infantino’s awarding of FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize to Trump in December 2025, the lifting of US forward Folarin Balogun’s World Cup suspension after Trump called Infantino directly, and the shelved FIFA Forward Enterprise private-investment plan, in which the venture capital firm of Josh Kushner, the brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared, had been lined up as chief investor.
“There is a line between all these three cases, and it’s the same political regime,” NFF president Lise Klaveness told Al Jazeera.
Klaveness also questioned whether Infantino’s conduct amounted to “an abuse of power, an abuse of position.”
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FIFA has 211 member associations, and each votes individually at Congress. Confederations such as UEFA and CONCACAF do not control how their members vote, so the Norwegian filing is a formal governance challenge rather than a bloc revolt. It still forces FIFA’s ethics machinery to engage.
Saturday in Tuscaloosa
The calendar does not slow down. Trump is scheduled to attend No. 7 Alabama against No. 2 Georgia at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday 10 October, an appearance he announced at a rally in Mobile. Kickoff is at 6:30pm CT on ABC. It will be his third visit to Bryant-Denny Stadium, after Alabama’s 46-41 loss to LSU in 2019 and Alabama’s 41-34 win over Georgia on 28 September 2024.
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