Former Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand attended the 2026 World Cup draw on Friday night and sent a subtle message to US President Donald Trump.
Rio Ferdinand called on US President Donald Trump to stop casually referring to soccer as “soccer” during the 2026 World Cup draw on Friday.
Trump attended the grand raffle in Washington, D.C., to win the first FIFA Peace Prize. The 65th and 67th presidents of the United States were also given the opportunity to address the audience, telling the audience “what an honor” it was to be presented with the award.
Ferdinand’s introduction hinted that things were finally about to happen in terms of an actual draw. But raffle organizers couldn’t help but take issue with President Trump’s use of the word football.
read more: World Cup draw live: Donald Trump wins, England and Scotland find their opponents
The former England and Manchester United defender said: “Mr President, with your permission, we have to stop calling it football! I’m sorry. Where I come from, it’s football and most people in this building right now call it football. If that’s okay with you, we’ll keep going, okay?”
Ferdinand’s comments came after President Trump quipped that America should create a new term to describe the NFL and say, “This is football.”
“If you look at what’s happened to football… American soccer, it seems like we’ll never call it that because we have another conflict with another thing called football,” Trump said in a speech to the crowd.
“But when you think about it…this is football, there’s no question about it, but you have to come up with another name for the other football. When you think about it, it really doesn’t make sense.”
Ferdinand, who won 81 caps for his country, went on to see England qualify for Group L alongside Croatia, Ghana and Panama.
Thomas Tuchel’s team will open the season against Croatia, whom they defeated in the semi-finals of the 2018 tournament. The full schedule will be decided in a separate lottery on Saturday, but the opening game will be played in either Dallas or Toronto.
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