FIFA President Gianni Infantino may be forced to scrap the organization’s new peace prize after his move to award the honor last year to President Donald Trump stoked internal controversy at the global governing body for soccer.
Several FIFA council members reportedly expressed outrage that Infantino gave the award, which he launched last year, to Trump, claiming it was a political move. After the FIFA council members told Infantino on Thursday to make major changes or scrap the award, he said that the peace prize’s future will be referred to the governing body’s Football Social Responsibility Committee. The committee is set to make a recommendation on the matter before the next council meeting in December.
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One council member told the Guardian that the most likely outcome is the reinvention of the peace prize as an award for an individual within football, with a provision stating it cannot be given to a politician.
FIFA Vice President Debbie Hewitt said the committee “will consider, first of all, how the Peace Prize came about, whether it should have come about, whether it should have been awarded in the way that it was, who made that decision and whether or not it should be taken out or whether it should be reformed.”
Infantino awarded Trump the organization’s inaugural prize in December at the World Cup draw in Washington, saying he modeled an “unwavering commitment to advancing peace and unity throughout the world.”
Infantino did not mention Trump when he initially announced the organization would launch the prize in November. However, the launch came just weeks after Trump did not receive the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, which Infantino said in October the president deserved for brokering peace in Gaza.
In December, Trump accepted a golden trophy, medal, and certificate from Infantino, telling attendees he had saved “tens of millions of lives” through diplomatic interventions and had “stopped wars happening just before they started.”
“I want to really save lives. I don’t need prizes. I need to save lives,” Trump said on the red carpet. “So we’re saving a lot of lives. I’ve saved millions and millions of lives, and that’s really what I want to do.”
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The ceremony stoked controversy, leading an international human rights group to file a complaint with the FIFA ethics committee to look into Infantino on the grounds that he breached the organization’s commitment to political neutrality.
The Norwegian Football Federation and 50 members of the European Parliament had also suggested the matter should be investigated, before Thursday’s FIFA council meeting brought the issue to a head.
