Much like many others left befuddled by the vision of US President Donald Trump awkwardly standing in the middle of Chelsea‘s FIFA Club World Cup trophy-lifting moment, star player Cole Palmer’s confusion was equally palpable

Akin to his big-stage UFC entrances, the Republican leader’s arrival at MetLife Stadium to resounding cheers of the audience on Sunday. He soon took centre stage to hand out the golden trophy to Chelsea after a jaw-dropping 3-0 victory against Paris Saint-Germain. As one would have predicted, the US leader could have stepped aside after giving the glistening trophy to captain Reece James. However, he awkwardly stood his ground for the entire victory celebration.

Confusion arose as Trump hilariously stole Chelsea’s spotlight amid trophy celebration

As he got stuck in the middle of the scene, England hero Palmer was confused by the development and ended up blurting out, “Wait, wait, what’s he doing?” Ultimately, the Chelsea captain asked Trump before breaking out into full-fledged celebrations, “Are you going to leave?”

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But Trump just stood there, smiling and clapping, surrounded by the Chelsea lineup. Finally, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who is also the POTUS’ longtime pal, came to the rescue as his struggle to pull the American leader away from the scene paid off.

Speaking of Trump’s spotlight-stealing moment at the Club World Cup, Palmer later said, “I knew he was going to be there, but I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand where we lift the trophy. So, I was a bit confused.” The Club World Cup Golden Ball winner added, “I thought he was going to exit the stage, but he wanted to stay.” 

After making the glorious celebrations all about himself, Donald Trump even went on to joke about signing an executive order mandating soccer be called “football” in the United States, as it is called everywhere else.

Trump to rename soccer ‘football’?

During an interview at the FIFA Club World Cup final, the MAGA boss responded to the suggestion of renaming soccer in the US. “I think we could do that,” he told DAZN.

“The US] is doing very well on the other stage, on the political stage, on the financial stage. I was just in Saudi Arabia, I was in Qatar, I was in the UAE. Here we have Qatar, you know, the big presence they have, but you have all of the leaders and then you look at NATO, all of the leaders said ‘a year ago your country was dead, and now you have the hottest country in the world,” the US leader went on.

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“There’s a lot of truth to that, we were doing very badly as a country in an incompetent administration and now we have a hot country. It’s really hot. And I think the soccer is going to be hot here too.”

After the Club World Cup, North America is also preparing to host the FIFA World Cup in June-July 2026 for the first time since 1994. The Olympics are also due in Los Angeles in 2028.