As delighted Americans flock to share clips of foreign World Cup fans enjoying their time in the United States, the Trump administration is set to welcome one viral standout in particular — a German soccer fan known as “Freddy” — to the White House.
“I arranged a visit to the White House for Freddy, the viral FIFA World Cup tourist from Germany, to cap off what has been an epic FIFA World Cup visit to the United States,” Nick Adams, the Special Presidential Envoy for American Tourism, Exceptionalism, and Values, announced on Wednesday.
Freddy will visit the White House this month, near the conclusion of his U.S. trip, a source familiar with the plans told Breitbart News.
As Breitbart News reported, the German World Cup fan has been going viral with virtually every social media post as he documents his road trip across the United States since his arrival in early June.
Americans have also been flooding the comment sections of Freddy’s posts with recommendations for their favorite local spots whenever his route takes him near their towns.
Freddy quickly amassed an impressive 750,000 followers on X, but deleted his account on Monday after facing criticism — a reminder that sudden popularity, even when fueled by overwhelmingly positive energy, never fails to come with ramifications.
“Freddy’s story is a quiet tragedy of modern social media,” podcaster and political commentator Mario Nawfal wrote. “A German fan road-tripping through America, marveling at everyday life in the South, built a following of 753K almost overnight, purely on good vibes and genuine curiosity.”
“Then the machine turned,” Nawfal added. “Old posts resurfaced without context, critics attacked him for the audacity of having a good time, and the fame he never wanted disrupted the simple trip he came for. And he left.”
Freddy faced backlash after social media users took issue with some of his old social media posts, and after internet sleuths discovered that he had visited the United States in the past.
The German soccer fan issued a statement on Tuesday, explaining why he deleted his X account:
Too many people seem to have a problem with us having a genuinely good time here in the country, and this is ruining the fun a bit for us because we really just wanted to document our road trip and never expected that people would have a problem with it.
People are digging in my 22k posts to find a handful of in their opinion controversial posts and post them [with] zero context to make me look like a bad person.
In response to those upset over Freddy having previously visited the U.S., the World Cup fan said he found this piece of backlash “surprising,” especially given that he had “replied to someone at the beginning of the trip” revealing “I’ve been here before.”
“I can understand that it seemed like that for many because of our reactions to the stuff we saw, which is because we’ve never been to any of the places we visited,” Freddy added.
“It was for us all our first time in the South. I’ve only been to the main tourist places like NYC, LA, and Las Vegas,” the German soccer fan explained.
Despite the backlash, Freddy’s visit to the White House is still proceeding as planned, Adams said, declaring that the World Cup fan’s only “crime” was “loving America.”
“Despite the hateful and angry radical Left’s vicious attempts to doxx Freddy, launch personal attacks, and intimidate him into submission, ultimately forcing him to delete his social media accounts to protect his peace and safety, the West Wing visit will still take place,” Adams said.
“Freddy’s only ‘crime’ was loving America and documenting his travels in a completely non-partisan way. This is what they do. They try to scare and silence anyone who doesn’t conform,” the Special Presidential Envoy continued.
Adams went on to say he is “proud that Freddy enjoyed his trip here,” adding, “I refused to let the radical left turn something positive for our country into another victory for their politics of hate.”
“In the true spirit of 250, I lifted Freddy up and made sure their mob tactics would not win. The visit will go ahead as planned,” Adams proclaimed. “America remains open for business and open to visitors who simply want to experience the greatest country on Earth.”
“We will never let the mob dictate who gets to enjoy it,” Adams asserted.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.