‘This way, this way.” Fifa president Gianni Infantino attempted to corral Donald Trump on to the Kennedy Center stage on Friday evening as though guiding a four-year-old through a fire drill. “Or this way. Well, you can do what you want.”
Welcome to the 2026 World Cup draw – unofficial motto: Donald Trump, you can do what you want. That this surreal exhibition of grand self-importance began with Andrea Bocelli and ended with the Village People delineates how quickly things turned for the worse.
The pinnacle was the award of Fifa’s newly minted peace prize, announced with a video of the pyramids, the Statue of Liberty and what appeared to be the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Peace creates hope, and football transforms that hope into unity powerful enough to bring the world together,” said a husky voiceover. A lone clap rattled around the theatre.
The trophy itself looked a more suitable prize for the World’s Handsiest Man: five severed hands literally groping a ravaged world, or attempting to drag it to the depths of hell. But luckily Trump also got a “beautiful medal that you can wear everywhere you want to go”, which he proceeded to put on immediately. Trump called it “one of the great honours of my life” – entirely feasible for a man so steadfastly committed to dishonour.
Infantino makes much more sense when you learn he was bullied in school, which appears to fuel much of his magpie state of mind. “Look at me now,” he seems to scream. “I’m friends with the president, so close to the seat of power I can sniff it.”
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Fifa’s code of ethics states that its officials have a duty to remain “politically neutral”, and that violating this neutrality will be sanctioned with “an appropriate fine of at least CHF 10,000 (£9,320)” and a two-year ban from football. Infantino himself said in 2023: “We have to protect the autonomy of sport, the political neutrality of sport and the value of sport.”
But of course peace is not a politically neutral concept, and any self-appointed arbiter of global peace cannot be politically neutral. One man’s peace is another’s oppression. Almost all arguments in favour of Trump being recognised for his ham-fisted attempts at diplomacy are somewhere between highly subjective and utterly fantastical.
If you boycott next summer, Fifa will not care. Football could lose a billion fans and still be the most popular thing on Earth
It has been widely reported that Trump’s victory was concocted and executed by Infantino, largely without the knowledge of the wider Fifa board, although a “social responsibility” committee has been appointed to devise the process by which it will be awarded in future. The chosen peace expert is Zaw Zaw, president of the Myanmar football federation. He was once called “one of Burma’s up-and-coming cronies” and accused of hiring the then-dictator’s grandson to play for the team he owned. Good to know it’s in safe hands.
Beneath all this is the truth that football has always been exploited by those who both have and want power, because it is thoroughly exploitable, as anything people love unconditionally is. What are you going to do about it? Fifa is accountable to no one. Infantino was re-elected unopposed in 2019 and 2023. If you boycott next summer, Fifa will not notice or care. Football could lose a billion fans and still be the most popular thing on Earth.
The Qatar World Cup was punctuated by the righteous indignation of millions who watched all the same. The apex of international football is uniquely placed for exploitation, the perfect confluence of nationalistic pride, sport and mass audience. From Mussolini to Putin to Trump, this has always been the case. For all our protests and disgust, so long as there is football, there will always be someone else waiting to use it to do what they want.
Photograph by Michael Regan/Fifa/Getty Images