Marc Cucurella, Chelsea’s combative left-back, revealed that they could not lift the Club World Cup trophy until US president Donald Trump had left the arena. He told a Spanish outlet: “We had been told that, as a rule, Donald Trump would come to present us with the trophy and that we couldn’t lift it until he left.”
But to their shock, the American premier lingered long, putting on hold their celebrations. “we were all there waiting for him to leave, but the guy didn’t want to leave, and on top of that, we looked at him and he said, “Get him up, I’ll stay here, and so on.” And I wondered who would say anything to him, you know… I was scared s***less!” he detailed.
One of his teammates, Cole Palmer, the hero of the final, wherein they thrashed PSG, apparently asked his teammates. “What’s he (Trump) doing?” “’I knew he was going to be here but I didn’t know he was going to be on the stand when we lifted the trophy so I was a bit confused, yeah,” Palmer later said.
Nonetheless, Chelsea’s players lifted the trophy alongside a beaming Trump. The trophy, though, was a replica, as the original is in Trump’s Oval Office. “I said, when are you going to pick up the trophy? [They said] ‘We’re never going to pick it up. You can have it forever in the Oval Office. We’re making a new one’,” Trump said in an interview with official Club World Cup broadcaster Dazn. “And they actually made a new one. So that was quite exciting, but it is in the Oval [Office] right now,” he added.
The American president praised the tournament. “It’s about unity. It’s about everybody getting together and a lot of love between countries. I guess this is probably the most international sport, so it can really bring the world together.”
However, the afternoon began with a section of the crowd booing when his face appeared on video boards during the playing of the national anthem before the match. The boos rang again when he walked out with Fifa president Gianni Infantino to present the competition’s trophy, individual awards and runners-up medals.
