Donald Trump will make history on Sunday when he becomes the first sitting US President to attend the Super Bowl, writing a new chapter in an often-strained relationship with the NFL that has been marked by decades of animosity.

A keen sports fan, Trump's links to America's most popular sport stretch back to the early 1980s, when he first sought to join the exclusive club of NFL team owners by attempting to purchase the Baltimore Colts.

Thwarted on that occasion, he went on to buy a team in the United States Football League (USFL), set up as a spring-summer alternative to the autumn-winter NFL.

Trump was subsequently the driving force behind an acrimonious lawsuit filed by the USFL which accused the NFL of operating a monopoly, with the goal of forcing a USFL-NFL merger.

Although a jury found in favor of Trump's USFL, the league was awarded only $3 in damages, effectively leading to the league's decision to close in 1986 amid multi-million dollar losses.

Trump's first presidential term, meanwhile, witnessed a series of running battles against the NFL and its players, most notably following Colin Kaepernick's decision to kneel during the playing of the US national anthem in........

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