Summer 2026, the US, Mexico, and Canada will jointly host the FIFA World Cup. Viewership-wise, this is the biggest sporting event in the world. And in a bid to make sure the event goes on without a hitch, the organization has been pulling all the stops to ensure Donald Trump doesn’t jeopardize the competition in any way, including making up a peace prize award.
First thing’s first, FIFA is a global organization that exists for one purpose — to govern the rules and regulations of soccer. It’s sort of like the Olympics but for soccer. They neither have the capacity nor the expertise to monitor all the wars ongoing in the world, how they started, or even how they should end. They have actually only ever made pleas to fans to just keep politics out of the sport. The only time they made that exception was when they disqualified Russia from world football for invading Ukraine — and in subsequent years got criticized for not extending the same stance to Israel.
Usually when it comes to FIFA, the discussion is Cristiano Ronaldo v Lionel Messi or who is going to perform in the halftime show. But now the discussion has somehow shifted to whether they should be handing out peace prizes. A parody page on X attributed to California Governor Gavin Newsom certainly doesn’t believe so; in a scathing post, the account compared it to a “Happy Meal” award.
I WANT TO CONGRATULATE DONALD J. TRUMP FOR WINNING THE "YOU DIDN'T WIN THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE BECAUSE YOU'RE A WARMONGER AND A CLOWN BUT WE STILL NEED YOU SO HERE'S A HAPPY MEAL AWARD YOU CAN WEAR TO YOUR CABINET CONCUBINE MEETINGS SO YOUR HAREM CAN CLAP LIKE CIRCUS SEALS" MEDAL. https://t.co/9c7Ydt7yAT
— Governor Newsom Press Office (parody) (@AwesomeNewsom) December 5, 2025
FIFA President Gianni Infantino justified the award by saying, “This is what we want from a leader; a leader that cares about the people. We want to live in a safe world, in a safe environment. We want to unite – that’s what we do here today, that’s what we’ll do at the (FIFA) World Cup, Mr. President.”
In the organization’s official website, Trump was praised for securing ceasefires in the DRC, the Rwandese border, and in Gaza. It’s unclear what the cadence of this award is going to be from now on. FIFA doesn’t exactly host banquet galas every other year — but every 4 years they host the World Cup, and the events are just about every other month. So does this mean they will start handing out a peace medal to everyone with power that they need to behave? Who knows.
All that is known is that the Trump administration was already planning on using World Cup stadiums as bait for their ICE raids. And that’s not exactly a great proposal for the bottom line of FIFA, who — and it should not require more clarity — only exists to ensure people watch soccer in an organized way.
On X, the reaction to this entire debacle could not be more embarrassing for Trump even if his entire point was to make this one of his infamous trolls. Some users were laughing at him for being probably the only person to put a medal on himself, and some even joked that this might mean the NFL could technically now give awards for achievements in physics.
The concept of putting a medal on yourself pic.twitter.com/j0joAtD8mT
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) December 5, 2025
wtf is a FIFA peace prize? that's like being an NFL laureate in physics
— derek guy (@dieworkwear) December 5, 2025
Ultimately, you can’t even fault FIFA for doing this — because they knew a shiny object was going to get Trump off their back.
