FIFA invents a “Peace Prize” to flatter Donald Trump, proving once again that football’s governing body never misses an open goal for global embarrassment, writes Kate Zarb.
WE WEREN’T SURPRISED when we saw it play out, but the punchline we’ve been bracing ourselves for has finally happened. On Saturday 6 December, FIFA awarded its inaugural Peace Prize – a prize no one had ever heard of before Saturday – to none other than Donald Trump.
Clearly, FIFA has decided the respect of six billion people isn’t worth having. It’s sucking up to the giant man-baby with a made-up prize and a trophy big enough (and ugly enough) to be used as a security bollard.
Or has it?
FIFA, like the rest of the world, has been watching in horror at the way everything is spiralling under Trump’s oppressive presence. He is at once a laughing stock and an existential threat to millions of people, such is his malice — and FIFA knows this.
With football still only a minor sport in the USA, I’m sure FIFA was hoping to profit from a successful Men’s World Cup, in 2026 and for many years to come.
But I think FIFA has seen the writing on the wall. It knows the 2026 World Cup won’t be remembered for an astonishing goal, but for the players turned away at the border. It knows there will be no heroism on the football pitch if the locker rooms, team hotels and public streets become a hunting ground for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) agents hell-bent on deporting anyone darker than an Antebellum plantation owner.
Like many of you, I try to stay away from news from the USA. I realise I am privileged to be able to do so. But my boycott isn’t a complete one. I’ve seen the videos of I.C.E. agents terrorising people, violating the Constitution, confident in their impunity. The Project 2025 regime has recruited the cruellest and most ignorant people in the country and given them a gun and a badge. And not just a gun, but an arsenal. And not just a badge, but a government prepared to look the other way when laws are broken by White men in uniforms.
FIFA can’t be sure that players will have safe passage when travelling to the USA next year. There will be even less protection for the fans, which may keep many of them away. As well as the ticket revenue, FIFA risks embarrassment if the powerhouses from South America, Europe and Asia attract smaller crowds than a local Under 6’s match.
The USA will cement its reputation as the most contemptible nation on Earth, that much is certain, but FIFA risks humiliation as well. Teams like Brazil, Spain and England are used to a certain level of celebrity. Empty stadiums would draw the ire of every football-loving nation on Earth (which, at last count, was all of them) and who knows what that could mean for FIFA’s future?
I think FIFA has taken lessons from the stories of Coppola, Scorsese and David Chase and decided their only hope for “protection” is to pay off the local gangster boss. And like Tony Soprano before him, the only currency Trump accepts is sycophancy.
Will FIFA’s global humiliation pay off? Only time will tell. Just days after Silicon Valley billionaires, including Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, dined with Trump, each taking turns to heap praise on the tangerine tyrant, Trump added a new $100,000 fee to the H-1B visa that these tech bosses rely on to keep their empires running.
And yes, it was as cringe-inducing as it sounds. America’s richest men spent an evening awkwardly reverse-roasting the President – “blowing smoke up his arse,” as Australians would say – only to forget them and his “deals” with them after a few days.
I recently saw a meme that compared Trump to all four of the bad Willy Wonka kids. This is the core of Trump, so evil that even fictitious villains have to be amalgamated before they approach his level of depravity.
This is the man that FIFA is wooing.
Of course, we all know the “Peace Prize” has been conjured up, but, hopefully, Trump won’t. Even if he has any nagging doubts, FIFA is a global organisation and it wouldn’t take much for Trump to be convinced that FIFA is far more respected than the Nobel Committee. If he keeps believing that this made-up prize is the greatest honour ever bestowed on a man, it just might have some sway with him.
We can only hope it works.
Kate Zarb is an exhausted Gen X woman who just wants the world to be a better place. She has worked in everything from hospitality to politics, using each chapter as an opportunity to learn about the world we live in. You can follow Kate on Bluesky @kathoftarragon.bsky.social.
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