Opinion

The easiest way to understand FIFA’s decision to award Donald Trump a “Peace Prize” is to stop pretending that it has anything to do with peace. What happened at the Kennedy Center was not diplomacy, recognition, or moral judgment. It was a consolation ceremony for a man who wanted the real prize, asked for the real prize, was publicly denied the real prize — and sulked loudly enough that someone powerful decided to invent a cheaper substitute.

This was not history being made. It was a tantrum being managed. The whole spectacle had the emotional logic of a 13-year-old brat insisting everyone sing “Happy Birthday” to them on someone else’s birthday, simply because they couldn’t stand not being the centre of attention.

The prize itself barely existed before it was handed over. FIFA announced the creation of a new annual “Peace Prize” just weeks before the ceremony, framing it as recognition for “exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and unity”. The award was presented without a published shortlist, transparent criteria, or any disclosure of the judging process.

By a coincidence so brazen it barely qualifies as one, the inaugural recipient turned out to be Donald Trump — a man whose failure to secure the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year appears to have annoyed not only him but FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who had openly campaigned for Trump to win it.

When the Nobel Committee instead awarded its prize elsewhere, FIFA stepped in to plug the emotional gap with a custom-built alternative. It was the diplomatic equivalent of a participation medal, handed to a grown man who could not accept that global respect is not something you can demand, litigate, or strong-arm into existence.

Infantino made no attempt at subtlety. Standing beside Trump, he announced: “This is your prize. This is your peace prize.”

It was not an evaluation; it was an offering. Less an award ceremony than a genuflection, delivered with the eagerness of a man currying favour rather than defending principle. Infantino later added that Trump could “always count on” his support — an extraordinary declaration from the head of an organisation that routinely insists it is politically neutral, even as it bends itself into increasingly decorative shapes around power.

Trump, visibly thrilled, responded exactly as the performance required. “This is truly one of the great honours of my life,” he said, before announcing — without irony or embarrassment — that his leadership had “saved millions and millions of lives” and made “the world a safer place”.

No evidence was offered. None was expected. The prize was not about facts, outcomes, or measurable peace. It was about vibes. Big ones. Gold ones.

The most revealing moment came not in the speeches, but in the choreography. Trump did not wait to be honoured. He grabbed the medal and put it on himself — physically crowning his own chest with the symbol of “peace”. It was a moment of accidental honesty. Peace, apparently, is now a wearable accessory: something you hang around your neck like a boxing belt or a branded hoodie, to be displayed whenever validation is required.

Outside the room, the reaction was rather less indulgent. 

Human rights organisation FairSquare filed a formal ethics complaint

, accusing Infantino of breaching FIFA’s own rules by engaging in overt political advocacy. The group argued that praising Trump and awarding him a peace prize amounted to a political act disguised as sports governance.

Trump has claimed that he has “ended” or “stopped” multiple wars, often citing Gaza, tensions in Ukraine, border clashes between Thailand and Cambodia, and conflicts involving Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In reality, most of these cases involve fragile ceasefires, temporary pauses, or diplomatic processes that were already underway, rather than wars conclusively ended by Trump himself. Fighting in Gaza has repeatedly resumed, Ukraine remains at war despite Trump’s proposals, and clashes in Southeast Asia and central Africa have continued after brief lulls. While Trump has positioned himself as a global peacemaker and expanded the number of conflicts he says he has resolved, the outcomes so far have largely been partial, unstable, or symbolic rather than lasting peace settlements.

Many critics have gone further, pointing out that Trump’s foreign policy record includes abandoning international agreements, threatening allies, cosying up to autocrats, and overseeing military actions that killed civilians — a résumé that would normally disqualify someone from peace honours rather than fast-track them.

Even among football fans — a group long conditioned to FIFA’s elastic relationship with ethics — the reaction veered towards disbelief. This was the same organisation still attempting to launder its reputation after decades of corruption scandals, now rebranding itself as an arbiter of global virtue while preparing to make billions from a World Cup hosted largely in Trump’s own United States.

Late-night television wasted no time in calling the obvious. 

Jon Stewart described the prize as “the most FIFA thing imaginable”

, observing that it felt less like a peace award and more like “a participation trophy for geopolitics”.

But beneath the jokes sits a darker, more humiliating truth. Peace, stripped of meaning and handed out as a branding exercise, becomes a parody of itself. The people who actually do peace work — mediators, aid workers, civilians clawing their way through ceasefires and rubble — were nowhere near that stage. They don’t get medals they can “wear everywhere”, 

They get risk, exhaustion, trauma, and obscurity.

Trump, meanwhile, got exactly what he wanted: a shiny object, a headline, and another chance to declare himself morally great without having to demonstrate it. FIFA got what it wanted too: relevance, access, and proximity to power.

What everyone else got was a moment of accidental clarity. When peace can be invented on demand, handed to the loudest man in the room, and physically placed around his own neck, it stops being a principle and becomes a prop. Watching Trump beam beneath the lights, adjusting his medal like a man admiring himself in a mirror, it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that peace itself had just been reduced to costume jewellery — loud, hollow, and purchased to soothe a wounded ego.

FIFA Invents a Peace Prize for Trump After He Fails to Win the Real One

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