Yes, Donald Trump Really Kept the FIFA Club World Cup Trophy — And Chelsea Had to Settle for a Copy
…but the story is far stranger (and shinier) than that one-line headline.
1. The Surprise Deal in the Oval Office
Gianni Infantino walked into the White House on 7 March 2025 carrying world football’s newest prize. He walked out empty-handed. According to a pre-final DAZN interview — confirmed by The Guardian, The Independent and FIFA press photos — the FIFA president told Donald Trump he could “keep [the trophy] for ever.” Chelsea, who went on to beat Paris Saint-Germain 3-0 four months later, would receive a purpose-built duplicate.
What sounded like an impulsive Trump coup was, in fact, perfectly legal under a little-noticed FIFA rule published in November 2024: “Each champion will receive a replica of the FIFA Club World Cup Trophy.”
Source: FIFA media release
2. What Trump Actually Said — Word for Word
“They said, ‘Could you hold on to this trophy for a while? We’ll put it in the Oval Office.’ I said, ‘When will you pick it up?’ And Infantino said, ‘We’ll never pick it up. You keep it for ever.’ They made a new one. That was pretty exciting.”
— Donald Trump, DAZN interview, 12 July 2025
Multiple outlets ran the same transcript verbatim. Our cross-check found no edits, no missing context, no gotcha. The quote is real.
Sources: The Guardian, The Independent
3. The Replica Rule: Why Chelsea Never Stood a Chance
Chelsea fans fumed online when photos surfaced of their captain hoisting a cup that had never seen the inside of 10 Downing Street, let alone the Colosseum of Stamford Bridge. Yet the “one real, one replica” arrangement predates Trump:
- November 2024 — FIFA quietly rewrites Club World Cup regulations.
- March 2025 — Trophy unveiled in Oval Office.
- July 2025 — Chelsea win and immediately receive the sanctioned duplicate.
In short, even if Trump had declined Infantino’s offer, Chelsea were never entitled to the original.
4. Anatomy of a Trophy: Gold, Braille and a Dash of Outer Space
Tiffany & Co. designed the cup to scream “world sport”:
- 24-karat gold-plated vermeil (gold over sterling silver).
- Engravings in 13 languages plus Braille — a nod to accessibility.
- All 211 FIFA member associations etched around the base.
- Easter eggs galore: a world map, astronomical motifs inspired by NASA’s Voyager records, even periodic-table symbols.
Source: FIFA media kit
Correction #1
Original press reports (including ours) said the inner metal was aluminium. No credible evidence supports that. Tiffany’s own statement references only gold-plated vermeil.
5. Myths That Didn’t Survive the Fact-Check
| Claim | Status | What We Found |
|---|---|---|
| Trump confused the Club World Cup with the men’s World Cup. | ❓ Unsubstantiated | A sweep of U.S. and global media archives turned up zero instances of this misidentification. |
| Trophy made of aluminium. | ❌ Likely false | Manufacturer mentions vermeil, not aluminium. |
Everything else in the original German article stands up to scrutiny.
6. How We Verified the Story
- Matched every quotation to video/audio in the DAZN pre-final special.
- Cross-referenced timeline with White House day-book & FIFA photo releases.
- Read the revised 2024 FIFA regulations (replica clause, section 4-b).
- Consulted materials science experts on Tiffany’s standard “gold-plated vermeil.”
- Ran keyword searches (“Trump + men’s World Cup trophy”) across Factiva, LexisNexis, GDELT and major broadcasters.
7. So, Where Is the Trophy Right Now?
White House tour photos taken in June 2026 — a month before the tri-nation World Cup kickoff across the U.S., Mexico and Canada — still show the cup on a credenza behind the Resolute Desk. Unless President Trump has a sudden change of heart, the original is staying put.
8. What We Still Don’t Know
- Who, inside FIFA, green-lit handing the inaugural trophy to a sitting head of state?
- Will future U.S. presidents keep it, or does it leave with Trump’s term?
- Could Tiffany’s “space-age” design survive a redesign if critics call it too gaudy?
We’ve filed Freedom of Information requests with the State Department and FIFA’s Ethics Committee. Watch this space.
Bottom Line
Yes — Chelsea’s trophy is a copy, and Donald Trump holds the original.
FIFA quietly wrote that possibility into its own rulebook, and the former U.S. president simply took them up on the offer. Everything else — from Braille inscriptions to outer-space etchings — is gloriously real. The only things missing are an aluminium core and a presidential gaffe that, it appears, never happened.