The video of Infantino spread after Trump presented the winner's trophy to Chelsea Football Club. However, instead of stepping aside for the customary trophy lift, Trump stayed onstage during the team's victory photos, resulting in criticism and even some of the football players expressing confusion.
Per the TikTok post, Infantino allegedly said:
This robber stole the glory that belonged to us. I really don't understand what this trophy has to do with the president of the United States. This was the most ridiculous day of my life and it happened right there on the Club World Cup podium. After every Club World Cup ends, the trophy always goes back to headquarters, quietly displayed in that building Zurich, Switzerland, to be admired by the whole world. That's the custom, the rule, the respect for football history. But this time, everything was broken.
Trump stood in the center of the podium, with all the cameras pointed at him and the players were forced to squeeze to the side. I tried to push him aside, but it was useless. I brought the trophy to the White House, wanting to do a diplomatic display, and [he] even said to me, "This trophy is beautiful. It would look great in my office."
Our rules are crystal clear. The original is for display only and teams can only take home a replica. And just like that, the most absurd trophy swap in football history was born.
There is no credible evidence Infantino made the above statement. Apart from a few seconds at the very beginning of the video, the FIFA president isn't seen actually speaking, and in those few seconds, the audio, likely AI-generated, doesn't match the movement of Infantino's lips. As such, we rate this video as fake.
We searched for specific sections from the above purported statement and found no authentic news sources verifying that Infantino ever criticized Trump using those words. Had Infantino actually made the above statements, it would have been headline news and would have likely gotten a public response from Trump.
On the contrary, Infantino and Trump appeared to be on good terms. Infantino even brought the FIFA trophy to the White House in March. A March 2025 Instagram post on Infantino's official page stated:
Today, the White House, under the leadership of the President of the ?? United States, Donald Trump, and Vice President JD Vance set up a task force for the FIFA World Cup 2026. [...]
I am confident that FIFA, together with the White House, is going to ensure that these events will be celebrations of our beautiful sport unlike anything else the world has ever seen before.
Trump said in a July 13 interview: "[FIFA] said, 'Could you hold this trophy for a little while?' We put it in the Oval Office and then I said, 'When are you going to pick up the trophy', and [Infantino] says, 'We're never going to pick it up, you can have it forever in the Oval Office, we're making a new one.' And they actually made a new one, so that was quite exciting [...] Right now it's in the Oval Office."
Per Getty Images, June 18 and June 27 photographs showed the trophy on display in the White House.
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
We previously reported on Trump's statement about FIFA giving him the original trophy. Snopes reached out to both the White House and FIFA to learn more about the current whereabouts of the trophy but has yet to receive a response.
We also covered the false rumor that the FIFA Club World Cup winners Chelsea deliberately edited Trump out of their celebratory photos, when in fact they had chosen to publish images from when Trump moved to the back of the stage.