Is the ongoing conflict between Liverpool and Mo Salah a job for Donald Trump? It very much has the shape of one, you would have to say. In the past eight months the president of the United States has ended, by his own calculations, eight major conflicts. Who is better placed, then, to answer the prayers of all those affected, stick a truce in place at Anfield and make it nine before Christmas?
True, some of those eight conflicts still seem to be going on despite the president having ended them. And others feature protagonists who claim the president’s role in their appeasement was negligible or even non-existent. And, in at least one instance, there was no actual conflict in the first place.
But you’re always going to get quibblers, aren’t you? The fact is, Trump is “the President of Peace”, and so important are his recent achievements as a global dove that Gianni Infantino has ignored his own rules on political engagement and awarded him the freshly minted Fifa Peace Prize, throwing in with the title an unliftable trophy and a medal the size of a tea plate.
“So who did he beat then?” It’s those quibblers again. And yes, Fifa hasn’t actually said who else it considered for the prize, or how long it spent banging heads together on this one, or anything at all, really, about the process by which this decision was reached.
But sit down, quibblers. Maybe that simply tells us everything about Trump’s current pre-eminence, peace-wise. For Fifa there simply couldn’t have been another recipient at this time. Indeed, what are the odds on Trump, this time next year, becoming the first person in history to retain the Fifa Peace Prize? Might be worth a flutter.
Anyway, as world football’s officially endorsed peacemaker, you could argue (quid pro quo) that Trump is now formally obliged to turn his attention to Anfield, where things have quickly turned very nasty. Indeed, the rapidity with which Salah has gone from friend to foe has startled even those of us who are instinctively suspicious of players who “play with a smile”. (What’s so funny? What are they not getting?)
One incautious interview on the subject of being benched and the pundits have piled in, with the result that Salah now finds himself enduring the regular fate of any player who plays for Liverpool and dares to imply that they may be less than eternally grateful for the honour.
It’s painful to watch, wherever you stand, and whether he goes or whether he stays, it needs sorting. Not that we’re imagining Trump himself flying in to get involved on the ground. That’s not how this global diplomacy stuff seems to work.
Rather, the president tends to dispatch someone he’s known for many years who is a big noise in refrigeration, or possibly coastal resort development, accompanied perhaps by one of his children’s smarter spouses. They’ll go in and, with the full might of America’s economic and military clout behind them, thrash out the details with the owners and Salah’s agent, securing, along the way, a significant American interest in any future reconstruction of Anfield and a juicy share of the region’s mining rights if applicable. Bingo! Another big, beautiful peace deal to add to the list.
And once he’s done Anfield, maybe Trump could have a look at Turkey. Because what a mess that is: more than a thousand professional players currently suspended for betting offences, with further court cases pending. And then he can do Arsenal and Tottenham.
Of course, people will tell you Trump was elected to focus on domestic matters. By which I guess they would be meaning Major League Soccer, a competition so beset by conflicting structural issues, and so peculiarly uninteresting, that not even people who love football can be bothered with it.
And true, being a resort-owning resident of Florida does give Trump a unique expertise in the challenges of retirement communities. And he’s Fifa’s Mr Peace, so…
But no. Liverpool and Salah: that’s the one. Without peace there, there is no peace for any of us. So good luck to him. Blessed are the peacemakers. Am I right, Gianni? Especially in football.
Photograph by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images