Donald Trump returned to The White House as US president this week, but the last time he was in office he turned up at a number of British football grounds during Covid.
OK, it wasn't actually the Donald Trump, with fans of different teams placing the face of the 45th American president on cardboard cutouts to fill empty seats during crowd-less matches. He was, however, spotted at Exeter, Wigan and Hibs, and even formed part of a Hamilton Accies kebab promotion.
But while there's no evidence to suggest that he played as a goalkeeper for Wolves' youth team in the mid-1960s, there's certainly a possibility that he could've had an impact on British football in another way 50 years later.
Donald Trump backed out of deal to save Rangers from liquidation
Trump could've turned up for real in Scotland in 2012, as reports suggested that he was investigating the possibility of buying Rangers at the time of their financial turmoil. Trump’s mother was born near Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides and her son showed affection for Scotland by upsetting everybody in it, with his controversial development of the Trump International Golf Links course in Aberdeenshire in 2012 (before buying Turnberry Golf Club in 2014).
In 2012 he deemed Rangers’ situation too dire for a takeover, which did at least spare gaffer Ally McCoist from having to work for TV’s most trigger-happy boss.
“We looked seriously and walked away,” a Trump source said. “It just didn’t make sense to us, though they’re a great club.”
Three years later, in 2015, Trump was reported to be part of a group mulling a purchase of Colombian outfit Atletico Nacional, partnering with Italian real-estate mogul Alessandro Proto, who had previously claimed to be the inspiration for the lead character in Fifty Shades of Grey.
“In the assessments we’ve been doing for several teams, we thought Nacional was the best,” an unnamed group spokesman said.
They were eventually told Atletico weren’t for sale, presumably as the club feared Trump was a threat to Nacional’s security.
