Trump to Present 2026 World Cup Trophy Amid FIFA's Growing Blockchain Push

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has confirmed that Donald Trump will attend the 2026 World Cup final and present the trophy to the winning team. This is a break from tradition, as FIFA officials typically present the trophy.

Infantino stated that organizing the World Cup without Trump's influence would have been 'impossible.' The 2026 edition of the tournament features 48 teams hosted jointly across the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

FIFA has been aggressively courting blockchain partnerships for the tournament. It has announced Kraken as its Official Crypto Exchange Supporter and launched a FIFA Blockchain powered by Avalanche to support its digital collectibles platform, FIFA Collect.

The platform's migration from Algorand and Polygon to Avalanche suggests that FIFA sees something in that chain's performance characteristics worth betting on. Chainlink will provide oracle infrastructure for FIFA's first on-chain prediction markets during the tournament.