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President Donald Trump’s call to FIFA President Gianni Infantino urging him to review U.S. striker Folarin Balogun’s red card has thrust the politics of global sport back in the spotlight — and it’s raising questions about how the Olympic movement plans to navigate a White House that has an interventionist approach toward the world’s biggest sporting events.
Trump’s involvement — along with that of other senior administration officials — with the global governing body for soccer highlighted just how deeply FIFA has cultivated its relationship with the White House.
But with Los Angeles set to host the 2028 Summer Olympics, Olympic officials have charted a markedly different course. So far, newly elected IOC President Kirsty Coventry has yet to appear publicly alongside Trump.
While FIFA has been the primary organizer of the 2026 World Cup, the International Olympic Committee will rely on LA28 — the independent local organizing committee — to execute the games.
That structure has allowed the IOC to keep more distance from Washington. Asked in January whether she could learn from Infantino’s approach to courting Trump, Coventry suggested the Olympic movement would take a more measured path.
“If we weren’t seeing good relations six months before the World Cup I would get worried,” she said. “As we get closer to the Olympics you will see the relations continue … and only get stronger.”
For now, the personal relationship with Trump has largely been managed through Casey Wasserman, the chair of LA28, who has emerged as the Olympic movement’s chief interlocutor with the White House.
Wasserman appeared alongside Trump in the Oval Office last year when the president signed an executive order establishing a White House task force focused on the 2028 Games. But it’s a sharp contrast with Infantino’s regular presence at the president’s side, his proclivity for praising the president in public and catering to his ego. After supporting the effort to have the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Trump, Infantino created FIFA’s first-ever Peace Prize and awarded it to the president.
“My understanding of the Casey way is keep your head down, do the work, have your leaders lead the day-to-day, and worry about the most important things to make sure the event is successful, right?” said one person who has worked closely with Wasserman. “It’s not grandstanding and placating the way Gianni has done. It’s just a different approach. Look, maybe it’s just too soon, but he’s not a peace prize-giving kind of guy.”
Behind the scenes, however, cooperation between LA28 and the administration has already begun.
According to people familiar with the discussions, organizers have been working closely with the White House Olympic Task Force on a range of logistical issues, including plans for a pro-am golf tournament at Trump’s Los Angeles-area golf course before the Games.
At the State Department’s request, LA28 has also helped develop a dedicated visa processing portal for Olympic athletes and officials. The system has already been used to facilitate the entry of a small number of LA28 support staff into the United States, according to people familiar with the effort.
As the World Cup has unfolded this month, Trump’s interest in the Olympics has hardly diminished — they are the two events taking place during his second term that he takes credit for bringing to the U.S., based on decisions that were made during his first term.
“The beautiful thing about what I did is I ran [for president again]. I never thought of it, and then all of a sudden I realized, you know, I just got the Olympics, and I totally got that myself, and I just got FIFA,” Trump said on Monday. “I got that myself.”
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