(AFP) – US President Donald Trump became the first ever recipient of FIFA’s new peace prize at the 2026 World Cup draw Friday — a compensation gift for a leader who still dreams of winning the Nobel. Gianni Infantino, the head of world football’s governing body and a close ally of Trump, presented the 79-year-old with the award during the ceremony at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
“Thank you very much. This is truly one of the great honors of my life. And beyond awards, Gianni and I were discussing this, we saved millions and millions of lives,” Trump said. “The world is a safer place now.” Infantino said Trump won for “exceptional and extraordinary” actions to promote peace and unity around the world and presented him with a golden trophy and a certificate. “There is also a beautiful medal for you that you can wear everywhere you want to go,” Infantino said. Trump immediately put it around his neck, saying: “I’m going to wear it right now.”
FIFA announced the annual prize in November, saying it would recognize people who bring “hope for future generations.” But its inaugural recipient was hardly a surprise. Infantino, 55, has developed a tight relationship with Trump, visiting the White House more than any world leader since Trump’s return to office in January. The US president often insists that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending what he says are eight conflicts this year. These include a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, although an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine eludes him.
Infantino has traveled as far afield as Egypt and Malaysia to attend three ceremonies for Trump-brokered peace deals in recent months. Trump has put himself at the head of a “board of peace” for war-torn Gaza, while his administration this week renamed a Washington peace institute after him. But Trump was overlooked by the Norwegian Nobel Committee last month as it awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.
The US leader has meanwhile made the World Cup a centerpiece of his second presidency, and of the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of US independence next year. Yet it was an extraordinary gesture for FIFA, a sporting organization that trumpets its political neutrality. There has been little transparency around the prize. Human Rights Watch says it has written to FIFA to request a list of the nominees, the judges, the criteria, and the selection process — and has received no response.
The prize came as Trump faces criticism from Democrats and rights groups on a host of issues. The self-proclaimed “president of peace” has launched a huge US military build-up around Venezuela and ordered deadly airstrikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats. He has also ordered a hardline migration crackdown, threatening to move World Cup games from cities where he has sent troops and freezing asylum decisions from 19 countries — including World Cup participants Haiti and Iran. And he has cracked down on political opponents, rival ideologies, and those who challenge his false claim he won the 2020 election.
The venue for the draw, the Kennedy Center, was where Trump installed himself this year as chairman in what he called a war on “woke” culture. “FIFA’s so-called peace prize is being awarded against a backdrop of violent detentions of immigrants, national guard deployments in US cities, and the obsequious cancellation of FIFA’s own anti-racism and anti-discrimination campaigns,” Minky Worden, who oversees sport for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
– Danny KEMP
© 2024 AFP
