President Donald Trump appeared at the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw event on Friday at the Kennedy Center where he was given a "peace prize" by the organization's president, Gianni Infantino.
Trump has complained about not getting a Nobel Peace Prize for his 2025 work to end the war between Israel and Hamas. The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize only takes the previous year, in this case, 2024 into account when considering it's awards. That hasn't stopped Trump and his allies from complaining, however.
But FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) stepped up with a medal of its own, and both FIFA and Trump attracted swift ridicule from those who couldn't help but call it a "participation trophy."
Legal analyst Ken White pointed out the hypocrisy.
"Boomers: It just sucks so much that everyone gets participation trophies now, you used to have to show real merit to get an award Also Boomers," he wrote, including the video of the presentation.
Independent journalist Aaron Rupar called it, "beyond parody."
"I happen to think Donald Trump getting a prize from the most corrupt organization in the world is actually perfect," quipped Professor Joh Becker.
FIFA has come under fire in recent years after a bombshell indictment. The 2015 scandal resulted in the U.S. Justice Department indicting numerous officials on racketeering, fraud and bribery charges. The allegations were that the officials concocted a scheme to make money personally by rigging media and marketing rights and World Cup host locations. Nine officials and five executives were included in the indictment.
After Trump was given the newly created award, law professor Anthony Michael Kreis proclaimed, "I declared myself the heir to Charles III and supreme governor of the Church of England. Please post headline."
Trump also commented: "When you look at football in the US, soccer -- we seem to never call it that, because we have a little bit of a conflict with another thing that's called football. But when you think about it, shouldn't it really be called football? We have to come up with another name for the NFL stuff."
Constitutional scholar Robert Black responded to the "acceptance speech" by telling Texas U.S. Senate candidate, "James Talarico, I believe you have your campaign ad."
Watch the clip below:
