FIFA has long maintained that political messages have no place in football, frequently penalising players who display them. Yet on Friday, the organisation’s president Gianni Infantino handed US President Donald Trump the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize, prompting fresh questions about the body’s stance on neutrality.
The announcement came less than a day after the Trump administration carried out another lethal air strike in the Caribbean, a timing that drew sharp criticism from rights advocates and football commentators.
Craig Mokhiber, a former UN official who has pushed for Israel’s suspension from world football over its war in Gaza, called the award a “truly shameful development”. He argued that Infantino has consistently refused to hold Israel accountable, insisting that football “cannot solve geopolitical” problems.
“Not satisfied with two years of FIFA complicity in genocide in Palestine, Infantino and his cronies have now invented a new ‘peace prize’ in order to curry favour with Donald Trump,” Mokhiber told Al Jazeera. He said the move helps “obscure” Trump’s “disgraceful record” on Israel, the deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean, and “gross violations of human rights” inside the United States.
Infantino praises Trump’s global deals
While presenting the award, Infantino lauded Trump’s international agreements, including the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between Israel and several Arab countries without addressing Palestinian statehood.
The gesture appears at odds with Infantino’s previous insistence on keeping politics away from sport. “There’s no more powerful tool than sport to unite the people,” he said in 2023. “Now we have to protect the autonomy of sport: the political neutrality of sport and to protect the values of sport.”
Critics noted the contrast between that message and the decision to honour a president who days earlier referred to people from Somalia as “garbage”.
Football journalist Zach Lowy quipped on social media, “Giving Donald Trump a prize for peace is like giving Luis Suarez a prize for not biting people’s ears off.”
Infantino has built a close relationship with Trump as the US prepares to co-host the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada. He has been a frequent visitor to the White House and joined Trump in October at a ceremony in Egypt marking the Gaza truce.
FIFA did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.
The Democratic Party also criticised the move, saying, “Trump couldn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize so FIFA made one up for him.”
Trump’s record under scrutiny
Despite brokering some international agreements, including between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Trump has consistently pushed for higher military spending among Western allies.
He also ordered the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities in June and continued supplying arms to Israel amid its abuses against Palestinians.
In the Americas, his administration has carried out 22 air strikes on vessels it claimed were transporting drugs, killing at least 86 people. Legal experts have broadly condemned the operations as unlawful extrajudicial killings.
The US president has also deployed additional military assets near Venezuela, fuelling speculation of a possible intervention aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro.
Domestically, Trump has intensified immigration crackdowns, detaining and attempting to deport non-citizens. Some advocates say they have been targeted over criticism of Israel, despite such speech being protected by the First Amendment.
“US President Donald Trump was just awarded the newly created ‘FIFA Peace Prize’,” Human Rights Watch posted on X. “But his administration’s appalling human rights record certainly does not display ‘exceptional actions for peace and unity’.”
Mokhiber said the “vulgar” award should be withdrawn. “FIFA rules do not allow play on a muddy pitch. They certainly shouldn’t play on a bloody pitch. But that’s precisely where Infantino is leading FIFA,” he said.