Welcome to the Kansas City TRUMP World Cup (add gold filagree here) | Opinion
I don’t know about the inflation at your local grocery store, but Trump flattery inflation is on the rise. A few months ago, A handful of Swiss billionaires bought trade peace between their country and ours with a Rolex and a gold bar together worth $150,000.
On Friday, soccer’s — er — football’s FIFA eclipsed the famously neutral state’s generosity by designating Donald Trump its inaugural FIFA Peace Prize winner on stage with a gold medal for Trump to don and a trophy of golden hands holding up the world for his Oval Office mantel.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino called Trump his “good friend” and for Trump’s part, he beamed with the smuggest of grins saying this was “one of the greatest honors of my life.”
That should keep Trumpian threats to remove World Cup games from “Democrat-run” cities on the back burner for now, but summer 2026 when the games will come to the Democrat-run Kansas City is a long way from now.
Maybe Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas should a fire up a backup plan in case flattery inflation continues to run amok in Washington and we need to fend off a resurgence of threats to move the games the city has spent so much time, effort and money preparing for.
Let me suggest that we throw out all the promotional signage and rename Kansas City’s FIFA World Cup as the “Kansas City FIFA World Cup presented to you by Peace Prize-winner Donald Trump.” His picture could be added to bus wraps, banners and billboards all with a proliferation of gold braid, heavy on the gold.
For the games, the balls could be remade with one of the Pentagon thingies emblazoned with a sparkly gold T. Replicas would sell out because what could be more satisfying than taking a Trump ball to your backyard and giving it a good kick the way some of us would like to do.
Which reminds me: When Trump has been successfully flattered he is prone to conceding all kinds of important points in negotiations. While on the FIFA stage Friday, Trump acknowledged that soccer had a better claim on the name “football” than that game played by the Kansas City Chiefs.
“We have to come up with another name” for the game played by the NFL, Trump said to applause from the soccer hungry crowd. That idea is not likely to be popular with the millions of American football fans, but this, too, is an opportunity.
Maybe Clark Hunt could get the owners of the National Football League to rename the Super Bowl as the Trump Bowl in an effort to keep their hold on the name football that Trump seems so keen to give away. After all, “footy” is a game loved far more by foreigners than the actual Americans who fill Arrowhead and similar stadiums all over in the fall.
For my part, I think I will write a card to The Donald telling him that I’ll name my next child Trump. That makes about as much sense as a FIFA Peace Prize.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published December 6, 2025 at 5:08 AM.
