Chelsea FC have won two titles in 2025, but at least one of them has a replica piece of silverware. Get ready for the weird tale of the Club World Cup trophy. Chelsea claimed the UEFA Europa League Conference League title back in May, following it up with a FIFA Club World Cup title on Sunday. While it was a glorious tournament win for the Blues, the post-match celebration was overshadowed by the presence of POTUS 47 Donald J. Trump.
The American President was booed vociferously by the crowd at Metlife Stadium during the match (in which Chelsea defeated Paris Saint-Germain 3-0), and for some very bizarre and unexplained reason, forced his way into the trophy lifting ceremony.
Trump’s inappropriate presence during Chelsea’s moment of glory caused confusion in tournament MVP Cole Palmer.
If this wasn’t all strange enough already, it turns out that the original Club World Cup trophy is actually at the White House. It sits in Trump’s Oval Office while the piece of silverware (or in this case gold) lifted by Chelsea on Sunday was actually a replica.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who to his credit, tried getting Trump off stage during that major moment in East Rutherford, NJ on Sunday, visited the White House in March. During that visit, Infantino brought and left the Club World Cup trophy behind.
“They said, ‘Could you hold this trophy for a little while?’ We put it in the Oval Office,” Trump said in an interview to the tourney’s broadcaster, DAZN (cc The Independent). “And then I said, ‘When are you going to pick up the trophy?’ He 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…It’s in the Oval right now,” he added.
Well, ok, I guess, maybe. This hilarious political cartoon in The Guardian seems to tell a slightly different story.
Chelsea are now on a short holiday until a friendly against Bayer Leverkusen on August 8.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter