Fifa has entered the peace-prize business – and its choice for the award’s very first recipient has already stirred debate. By honoring Donald Trump with this freshly minted prize, Fifa-president Gianni Infantino is now facing sharp criticism for allegedly breaching the organization’s duty to remain politically neutral.
Last week, the phrase »peace prize« got a bizarre new spin – not from Oslo or Stockholm, but from Fifa, the global soccer federation. At the 2026 World Cup draw in Washington D.C., Gianni Infantino handed U.S. President Donald Trump the very first Fifa Peace Prize, an award the organization just created »to promote peace and unity around the world«. Trump called it »truly one of the great honors of my life«.
An Honor with Complications
According to Fifa, the prize is meant to recognize contributions to unity and peace, in line with its motto that »Football Unites the World«. However, critics have pointed out that the award was created with no transparent process or clear criteria, and it appeared just as Trump was co-hosting the massive 2026 tournament together with Canada and Mexico.
Questioning the Ethics
Here’s where things get even more interesting: Fair Square, a London-based human rights group has now formally filed a complaint to Fifa’s own ethics committee, saying Infantino violated the organization’s ethics code and its duty of political neutrality by publicly supporting Trump and awarding him the prize. Furthermore, Fair Square is calling on the Fifa Ethics Committee to investigate Infantino’s role in the initiation of the peace prize and in the decision to make the U.S. President its first recipient. So, ironically, the same organization that regularly insists that soccer must stay apolitical is now under fire from its own rules for doing exactly the opposite.
Global Reactions
Meanwhile, critics and commentators haven’t held back. Some refer to the award as sportswashing, others note the irony of the peace prize going to a president whose record on diplomacy and conflict resolution is, at best, contested. And the timing didn’t go unnoticed: Trump had recently been passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize, which this year went to the Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado for her work toward democracy.
The Bigger Picture
So, what does the Fifa Peace Prize mean now? Is it still an appreciation for genuine conflict resolution, or has it become a shiny toy used to flatter powerful allies and generate headlines? In an era when symbolic honors function as political currency, maybe »peace prize« should come with an asterisk.
Titelbild © AP, Pauline Kral
