Trump says America should call 'soccer' 'football'- Find out why

US President Donald Trump has reignited the age-old debate for what to call soccer—suggesting America should call it football instead.

Trump made this statement when he was attending the FIFA World Cup 2026 draw held yesterday at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on Friday, December 5, 2025.

Donald Trump was also honored as the very first ‘winner’ of the FIFA Peace Prize.

Why did Trump suggest 'football' for 'soccer' in America?

President Donald Trump during the on-stage Q&A before the draws took place, said, “

“When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, [or] ‘soccer’ in the United States, we seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that’s called ‘football.’

He continued, “But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called, I mean, this is football, there’s no question about that.”

Trump, while suggesting an alternate name for the NFL, America’s most watched sport, added, “We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff. It really doesn’t make sense, when you think about it, it isn’t really football.”

Trump’s statement was met with a resounding applause, backed by his longtime ally and FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

For the unversed, the soccer-football debate has raged for generations, with many accusing the U.S. of rebranding the sport with an Americanized name.

Today, ‘soccer’ is the common term in the U.S., Canada, and Australia—three nations where ‘football’ already refers to a different sport.