Think the FIFA 'peace prize' was laughably absurd? It was, but the joke's on us.
14 December
President Donald Trump accepts a peace award from FIFA, the international governing body of soccer, during the World Cup drawing on Dec. 5. (White House)
If you were appalled by the spectacle of Donald Trump clumsily accepting a peace trophy that looks like a prop from “Night of the Living Dead,” then brace yourself.
There may be worse in store.
To recount, Trump was given — to nobody’s surprise — the inaugural “FIFA Peace Prize” during the World Cup final draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington. You may recall that Trump named himself chair and master of ceremonies at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which for 50 years had been the nation’s premier cultural institution and largely insulated from politics. Now, it’s simply another reflection of Trump’s MAGA whims, and an oddly political choice for the final draw.
I don’t follow soccer — sorry, I mean football — but I gather from those who do that the final draw is an important day for fans, because that’s when they know which teams will play at various host cities.
Next year’s World Cup — which has been touted as the equivalent of 104 Super Bowls — is expected to be the biggest sporting event on the planet. The games will be held at 16 locations in the United States, Mexico, and Canada — including Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri.
The first game at Arrowhead will be Argentina (the 2022 Cup champion) versus Algeria on June 16.
But any news about the matchups was overshadowed by Trump’s clutching of the prize (or rather, the medal that came with) from FIFA president Gianni Infantino. FIFA is the global governing body for the sport and it has a history of bad behavior. The 2022 Cup was embroiled in bribery claims and concern about human rights violations in the host country, Qatar. In 2015, following an FBI investigation, top FIFA officials were indicted for racketeering and money laundering. You can think of Infantino giving Trump the prize as akin to the world’s most historically corrupt sports body giving a trophy to one of the world’s most corrupt leaders.
Trump, smarting from not having received the Nobel Peace Prize he so lusted after, accepted the FIFA prize but couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the Biden administration.
“The United States one year ago was not doing too well,” he said.
The prize, according to FIFA, is given “to reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world.”
FIFA did not reveal whether there were other nominees for the award or why the prize was announced just a month before. Apparently, the extrajudicial killings of alleged drug traffickers in small boats, the demonization and mass deportation of migrants at home, or threatening to invade Venezuela were not disqualifying factors.
The trophy, reputedly made of real gold, matched the absurdity of the award itself. It is a dread object, with zombie-like hands clawing upward, as if from the grave, at a globe that resembles a meatball you left in the microwave too long. But at least it was on brand. His mooning over the FIFA prize reminded me of the 2017 photo of Trump with his hands on a glowing orb in Saudi Arabia. No James Bond movie villain could signal his desire for world domination any clearer.
Why on this or any other Earth would FIFA indulge Trump?
To keep him happy.
Trump, a dangerous combination of ego and avarice, is about the only person who could seriously disrupt the World Cup games. Of the three host countries, the United States has the most locations, 11, and Trump has demonstrated his willingness to send troops to American cities for any reason. Also, most of the 6.5 million fans expected to attend this summer’s games are from places that Trump may have taken a dislike to, including Africa and South America. At least one national team — Haiti — is from a place Trump has described as a “s----hole” country.
Travel bans could seriously disrupt the ability of fans to attend games, and without fans there is no fan money. While claims that the World Cup is equivalent to 104 Super Bowls are likely overblown, there is no denying that a staggering amount of money is at stake. Tickets for the 2026 games are the most expensive in the World Cup’s history. Admission for the best matches range into the thousands of dollars and “dynamic pricing” — a first for FIFA — will set prices for some games according to demand.
The six games to be played at Arrowhead, including one quarter-final game, are expected to attract 650,000 visitors to the region. To support that tourism, the state of Missouri is giving $74 million, and Kansas is chipping in $28 million.
Infantino, once a Trump critic, now considers the MAGA leader a friend. FIFA’s ethics committee has been asked to investigate whether Infantino violated the organization’s neutrality rules in giving Trump the peace prize. From a business standpoint, it might seem like a bauble to keep him happy.
But why would Trump accept such a prize when it is so obviously absurd?
He must know that, coming on the heels of his Nobel disappointment, it appears to be some kind of poor substitute. There has been sport over this at Trump’s expense, but the joke is probably on us.
We’ve been here before.
Or at least the world has.
When the 1934 World Cup was hosted by Italy, dictator Benito Mussolini seized the opportunity to turn sport into propaganda.
Consider the official poster, the work of illustrator Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, an early adherent of Italian Fascism and the author of the “Futurist Manifesto.” It presaged a new movement that would glorify war; scorn women; and worship technology, destruction and speed. His World Cup poster is bold and unsettling, a dynamic male figure in an Italian national team shirt poised to kick the living daylights out of a brown ball, a fasces tucked into one corner.
“Mussolini was no great soccer fan, but he recognized the sport’s power both in terms of projecting an image of strength and in bringing the country together,” writes Jonathan Wilson in his 2025 book, “The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup.”
From its inception, Wilson writes, soccer has always been about far more than soccer. FIFA was organized in 1904, but the first World Cup wasn’t held until 1930, in Uruguay. In 1934, the cup was still new enough that much of the football world, including England, simply decided to sit the games out. But for Mussolini, the World Cup was a way to project fascist strength. He made himself central to the games, famously paying for his own tickets and watching from the stands as Italy kicked the daylights out of the United States.
Mussolini also created a trophy — the “Coppa del Duce” — as an additional prize to be given to the winner.
Sculpted in bronze, the trophy depicted players in front of the fasces — the axe and bundle that was the symbol of ancient Rome, co-opted by the fascists. It was also six times the size of the Jules Rimet, the original World Cup trophy named for FIFA’s longest-serving president. That trophy depicted the Greek goddess Victory and was used from 1930 to 1970. The current trophy, in use since 1974, is a somewhat abstract representation of two athletes exulting in victory.
I prefer the look of the old trophy, but alas it was stolen in 1983. All that’s ever been found is the stone base.
Now, I understand that Trump is no Mussolini.
But he is Il Duce-like in his awareness of image, and by placing himself center stage at the World Cup, he is reaching a vast global audience where football is played with a white ball and you can’t touch it with your hands. Typically, when the word “vast” is used it’s mostly hype, but in this case no other description comes close. FIFA is projecting that 6 billion people will watch at least one of the games, up about a billion from the last World Cup.
That is 75% of the world’s population.
How many people in the world know who won the Nobel Peace Prize?
If you know it was María Corina Machado of Venezuela, pat yourself on the back. You’re part of the informed minority. Machado, who was awarded the prize for her peaceful efforts to overthrow Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship, has dedicated the prize to Trump and now supports the use of force for regime change.
Hear that? I’m doing a forehead slap.
The world has become as dangerous as it was in 1934, if not more so. Let’s see, there was something else I was going to mention about dictators and sports. Oh yes, it was this: two years after Mussolini muscled his way to the forefront of the World Cup, another leader — Adolf Hitler — used the Olympics in Berlin to show the world the strength of the Nazi regime. But Jesse Owens taught the Führer a thing or two about the myth of the master race.
Save your cards and letters. I’m not saying Trump is Mussolini or Hitler.
But the tune sounds familiar.
Just about everyone with a screen of any kind — a computer, a smartphone, or communal access to a television — is expected to watch come summer. If they’re not plugged in individually, they’ll be gathered in schools or pubs, experiencing perhaps the national thrill of victory or the cold embrace of defeat, but at some point they are bound to have seen an image of Trump clutching that damned trophy, and for some the image will stick.
A man of peace.
Never mind the dozens of blown-to-bits occupants of the small boats in the Caribbean and the murder of the two survivors of the first strike, on Sept. 2. Never mind that just days after receiving the dread object, he seized an oil tanker off the Venezuelan coast as part of a massive military buildup that appears ready to topple the Maduro regime.
For my part, I will avoid as much of the World Cup nonsense as possible. If it’s on a television I have control of, I’ll change the channel. If it pops up on my feed, I’ll swipe past. No ads for World Cup merch will sway me. The “peace prize” alone was enough to persuade me not to spend a single dollar on anything related to FIFA or the World Cup. Well, I did buy Wilson’s book, but that taught me how politics have always been deeply embedded in the history of soccer.
Meanwhile, I’ll watch how plans for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles are shaping up. Politico reports that nearly all of the new board members to the Olympic planning committee have MAGA ties.
I hope Haiti wins the Cup.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.