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FIFA Must Revoke Trump's Peace Prize
If a government can pressure a global sports institution into legitimizing its leader under the banner of peace, then global civil society must be capable of compelling that same institution to correct its course.
Jan 18, 2026
In December, US President Donald Trump was awarded FIFA’s newly created “FIFA Peace Prize–Football Unites the World” by FIFA President Gianni Infantino. The decision immediately sparked disbelief and criticism worldwide, raising a fundamental question: What does FIFA mean by peace?
If football is truly meant to unite the world, then this prize—and the process that produced it—must be seriously reconsidered.
The awarding of the Peace Prize did not emerge from a transparent or democratic process. It reflects a broader pattern in which the Trump administration has exerted political and diplomatic pressure on international institutions to secure legitimacy and public endorsement. In other words, bullying. FIFA, despite its claims of neutrality and independence, appears to have yielded to that pressure.
But power imposed through coercion can be reversed through organized, collective, nonviolent action. If a government can pressure a global sports institution into legitimizing its leader under the banner of peace, then global civil society must be capable of compelling that same institution to correct its course. It is not about punishment or humiliation. It is about legitimacy.
Peace Cannot Be Performed
The United States’ current posture toward the rest of the world—marked by sanctions, coercive diplomacy, military threats, and disregard for international norms—stands in open contradiction to the values the Peace Prize claims to represent. One cannot credibly speak the language of peace while practicing domination.
Revoking this prize would send a clear message: Peace is not a public-relations exercise, nor a political trophy extracted through pressure.
When intimidation succeeds without challenge, it becomes precedent. When it is challenged collectively and nonviolently, it becomes brittle.
Revoking this prize would send a clear message: Peace is not a public-relations exercise, nor a political trophy extracted through pressure.
A World Cup Under Question
This controversy unfolds as the 2026 FIFA World Cup approaches. Scheduled from June 11 to July 19, it will be the first-ever 48-team tournament, with 104 matches across 16 cities, 11 of them in the United States, the others in Canada and Mexico.
International fans, activists, and political figures are questioning whether the current US political climate—particularly immigration enforcement practices, travel restrictions, and border policies—makes the country a safe and welcoming host for a global celebration meant to unite humanity.
Calls to boycott the 2026 World Cup are spreading across social media, as supporters report canceled travel plans; withdrawn ticket purchases; and growing fears of arbitrary detention, visa denials, and hostile treatment at borders. Human rights organizations have repeatedly warned about detention practices and the erosion of civil liberties—concerns that take on heightened urgency when millions are expected to cross borders for a global event.
A Nonviolent Proposal for a Global Reset
If there is one nonviolent action in 2026 with the potential to shift global consciousness, it is an international campaign demanding accountability from FIFA itself.
Such a campaign could call for:
- The revocation of the FIFA Peace Prize awarded to Donald Trump;
- A one-year postponement of the 2026 World Cup; and
- The relocation of the tournament to a coalition of African host countries—such as South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, and Algeria—regions with deep football traditions and long-standing exclusion from global sporting power.
FIFA is not a neutral body floating above politics. It is a global institution with 211 member associations, whose decisions reflect values, alliances, and power relations. What FIFA chooses to reward—and whom it chooses to honor—sends a message to billions.
Broadcasters: Withdrawing the Economic Consent
One of the most powerful nonviolent levers lies beyond stadiums and borders: broadcasting. The World Cup exists not only as a sporting event, but as a global media product. Television networks and streaming platforms pay billions in licensing fees that finance FIFA’s operations. Without those fees—and without audiences—the tournament loses its economic foundation.
A coordinated nonviolent campaign could therefore call on broadcasters to:
- Suspend World Cup coverage;
- Refuse to pay licensing fees while FIFA legitimizes coercive political power under the banner of peace; and
- Publicly explain their ethical position to viewers, advertisers, and citizens.
This action would not target players, fans, or workers. It would target the financial and symbolic infrastructure that allows FIFA to operate without accountability. This is not censorship—it is ethical refusal.
A Universal Campaign: Social Media as Nonviolent Infrastructure
For such a campaign to succeed, it must be global, visible, and coordinated. That is why social media is not secondary—it is essential. Social media platforms are today’s nonviolent infrastructure. They allow millions of people to act together across borders, languages, and cultures without centralized control. When used strategically, they transform isolated actions into universal pressure.
A global campaign could:
- Coordinate shared messages, visuals, and hashtags across continents;
- Amplify testimonies from fans, players, journalists, and human rights advocates;
- Expose contradictions between FIFA’s rhetoric and its actions in real time; and
- Apply sustained public pressure on FIFA leadership, broadcasters, sponsors, and advertisers.
This is how nonviolent movements grow: through visibility, participation, and persistence—until silence becomes impossible.
In order to succeed, however, this must be more than a media moment. It must become a grassroots nonviolent movement.
Football clubs, supporters’ associations, players, national federations, and fans everywhere should be called upon to stand—not against the sport, but for human dignity. This is about withdrawing consent from illegitimacy and restoring meaning to the game. Football has always been more than a game. It reflects who we are—and who we choose to become.
After all, people are not football fans first. They are human beings first.
The question now is simple: Will FIFA continue to serve power—or will it revoke the Peace Prize and reclaim the game for humanity?
This article was first published in English on Pressenza and is now available in: Spanish.
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'A Clear Breach': Watchdog Hits FIFA With Ethics Complaint Over Made-Up Trump 'Peace Prize'
Multiple rights organizations have slammed FIFA for giving Trump a "peace prize" given what they describe as his "appalling" human rights record.
Dec 09, 2025
International soccer organization FIFA has now been hit with an ethics complaint over its widely criticized decision to award President Donald Trump its first-ever "FIFA Peace Prize" last week.
The Athletic reported on Monday that FairSquare, a watchdog organization that monitors human rights abuses in the sporting world, filed an eight-page complaint with FIFA’s Ethics Committee alleging that FIFA president Gianni Infantino has repeatedly violated the organization's own code of ethics, which states that "all persons bound by the code remain politically neutral... in dealings with government institutions."
The complaint then documents multiple cases in which Infantino allegedly broke the political neutrality pledge, including his public lobbying for Trump to receive a Nobel Peace Prize; a November interview at the America Business Forum in which Infantino called Trump "a really close friend," and hit back at criticisms that the president had embraced authoritarianism; and Infantino's decision to award Trump with a made-up "peace prize" after failing to help him secure a more prestigious version.
FairSquare zeroed in on Infantino's remarks during the 2026 World Cup draw last week in which he told Trump that "you definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize for your action for what you have obtained in your way, but you obtained it in an incredible way, and you can always count, Mr. President, on my support."
The organization remarked that "any reasonable interpretation of Mr. Infantino’s comments would conclude that he a) encouraged people to support the political agenda of President Trump, and b) expressed his personal approval of President Trump’s political agenda." This was a particularly egregious violation, FairSquare added, because Infantino was "appearing at a public event in his role as FIFA president."
Even without Infantino's gushing remarks about Trump, FairSquare said that "the award of a prize of this nature to a sitting political leader is in and of itself a clear breach of FIFA’s duty of neutrality."
FairSquare isn't the only organization to criticize Trump receiving a "peace prize" from the official governing body behind the World Cup.
Human Rights Watch was quick to blast FIFA last week for giving Trump any sort of peace prize given what it described as the administration’s “appalling” human rights record.
Jamil Dakwar, human rights director at the ACLU, also said that Trump was undeserving of the award, and he noted the administration “has aggressively pursued a systematic anti-human rights campaign to target, detain, and disappear immigrants in communities across the US—including the deployment of the National Guard in cities where the World Cup will take place.”
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'One of the Worst Awards Someone Could Possibly Get': FIFA Blasted for Giving Trump Made-Up 'Peace Prize'
"Winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like winning the Dahmer Culinary Award," said one critic.
Dec 05, 2025
President Donald Trump, whose administration is engaged in a boat-bombing campaign in the Caribbean that human rights organizations and legal experts consider a murder spree, has finally been given a peace prize.
Although Trump tried unsuccessfully this year to get the Norwegian Nobel Committee to award him its prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, he was given something of a consolation gift on Friday when FIFA, the official governing body behind the World Cup, gave him its first-ever FIFA Peace Prize.
After being given the award, Trump called it "truly one of the great honors of my life," and suggested he deserved it for supposedly "saving millions and millions of lives."
A Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health study released last month estimated that Trump's decision to shutter the US Agency for International Development (USAID) earlier this year has already caused hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths, and a study published this summer by medical journal The Lancet projected that the end of USAID will lead to up to 14 million preventable deaths over the next five years.
According to the New York Times, the announcement awarding Trump the prize was "so hastily arranged that it surprised several of the body’s most senior officials, including board members and vice presidents."
The paper also noted that the prize was just the latest effort by FIFA president Gianni Infantino to shower Trump with flattery whenever possible.
"Mr. Infantino has lauded Mr. Trump at almost every opportunity, attending events that have little to do with soccer, handing over major FIFA trophies to Mr. Trump, and presiding over FIFA’s rental of office space in Trump Tower in New York two years after the organization opened a gleaming North American hub in Miami," the Times reported.
Human Rights Watch was quick to blast FIFA for giving Trump any sort of peace prize given what it described as the administration's "appalling" human rights record.
Jamil Dakwar, human rights director at the ACLU, also said that Trump was undeserving of the award, and he noted the administration "has aggressively pursued a systematic anti-human rights campaign to target, detain, and disappear immigrants in communities across the US—including the deployment of the National Guard in cities where the World Cup will take place."
Dakwar also called on FIFA "to honor its human rights commitments, not capitulate to Trump’s authoritarianism."
Daniel Noroña, Americas advocacy director for Amnesty International USA, also warned FIFA that many soccer fans could end up being targeted by federal immigration officials for trying to attend World Cup games in US cities next year.
"The threat of excessive policing, including immigration enforcement, at World Cup venues is deeply troubling, and FIFA cannot be silent," he said. "FIFA must obtain binding guarantees from US authorities that the tournament will be a safe space for all, regardless of political stance, opinion, or immigration status."
Anti-war group CodePink protested against Trump's award of the FIFA prize in Washington, DC, and argued that the president is "escalating war on Venezuela, protecting Israel’s continued attacks on Palestine, and terrorizing our communities with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the National Guard," and thus should not receive any honors for his supposed peacemaking efforts.
Other critics, however, argued that FIFA was the perfect organization to give the president a made-up peace prize given its long history of corruption and bribery scandals.
@EiFSoccer, an account on X primarily dedicated to soccer news, said that "the FIFA Peace Prize is unironically one of the worst awards someone could possibly get," given that it was being handed out by "one of the most corrupt sporting institutions of all time."
"Winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like winning the Dahmer Culinary Award," joked journalist Mark Jacob on Bluesky.
Fashion commentator Derek Guy, meanwhile, wondered "WTF is a FIFA Peace Prize" and then equated it to "being an NFL laureate in physics."
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