It took a kind of perverse, comic ingenuity to have replaced the scandal-ridden Fifa era of Sepp Blatter by unleashing a figure like Gianni Infantino upon the world. Blatter in his hey-day at least possessed a sort of Bond-villain charisma. Infantino was supposed to be the opposite of that: a legal and administrative wonk in football governance – a reliable hand.
But on a wintry Friday in Washington, Infantino gave one of the most infamous theatrical performances ever witnessed at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts. It was jaw-dropping: at once unwatchable and mesmerising as the nine-year president of Fifa seemed intoxicated by his own role in the show.
Dressed in his tux, he was by the end, a nightmare: the maître d’ who won’t leave the table and won’t shut up about the menu.
Friday’s draw was for a tournament to be jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, the neighbouring countries engaged in terse negotiations over illegal border crossings and Trump’s tariffs policies. But for Fifa, this was an occasion designed to flatter its star guest, one Donald J Trump, with Infantino, who has cast himself as a key ally of the US president, gifting him, on behalf of world football, the inaugural Fifa World Peace Prize.
RM Block
“Like everyone here in the room we see images of war all over the world,” he told Trump after presenting him with a complicated and somewhat creepy-looking gold trophy and a big gold medal, which the president slipped around his neck.
“And like everyone, we suffer for every child that dies. We cry with every mother that loses someone she loves and we want to see hope.”
It’s difficult to overstate just how hollow and empty that moment looked, sounded and felt. The ceremony could never hope to recover, and it didn’t.
There may be substance to the argument made by some that Trump’s ambitious and ceaseless foreign diplomatic initiatives have, for now, introduced a perilous stability in the Middle East. And it remains to be seen if he can deliver on his election boast to bring an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine. But the 2026 World Cup arrives at a time when the idea of visiting the United States, always a global dream destination, conflicts with its policy of pronounced isolationism and its aggressive anti-immigration policy.
Many football fans may have tuned in to Friday’s charade in Washington looking for signs that next summer’s festival could become the trip of a lifetime. The two-hour draw will have done little to persuade them.
The show was officially hosted by Heidi Klum, the German model, and the inescapable comedian Kevin Hart, but both were quickly shoo-ed off stage by Infantino.
It was snowing steadily across Washington at Friday noontime but whatever the temperature outside, it plummeted inside the vast auditorium shortly after Infantino began his warm-up act.
The Kennedy Centre – which may be renamed after its current president, who is also the occupant of the White House – is a gargantuan building on the edge of the Potomac river.
Infantino had, scattered around the darkened auditorium, some of the most glittering names in World Cup lore as his audience. And scattered around the darkened auditorium they remained. He also had millions of football fans watching around the world, baffled, disheartened, scornful and amused.
Scour the world wild web and it’s hard to find anyone who thought this was a good show.
Before the event, anti-Trump activists dressed as soccer referees fired out “red cards for war crimes” in protest at the Fifa prize.
“His legacy is one of division, ongoing conflicts across the Global South, and the terrorising of immigrant communities in the US. Fifa is celebrating a man whose policies are the opposite of peace,” said Codepink organiser Olivia DiNucci in a statement.
President Trump sounded sincere when he spoke about the award. It was a reminder of his true aggrievement at having been overlooked by the Nobel committee earlier this year.
“This is truly one of the great honours of my life. And beyond awards, Gianni and I were discussing this – we saved millions and millions of lives. The Congo for example. India/Pakistan ... all the wars we were able to end, in some cases just before they started.”
Things then went downhill as Infantino spoke to Trump, Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney, and Mexico president Claudia Sheinbaum as though they were children in showing them how to draw the pool-balls from the World Cup draw pot. Even Trump was becoming tired of his host after watching Carney draw Canada and Sheinbaum draw Mexico with the first two countries pulled.
“I think I know what this is going to be now,” Trump said.
“Does he know something that I don’t know?”
After opening the ball to hold up the ticket duly reading USA, Trump added: “This is shocking.”
And it was, in its awfulness. Of course, if society demanded incorruptibility and unimpeachable ethics from Fifa, then the concept of the World Cup would have fallen apart decades ago.
USA 1994 was a grim, unloved tournament for everyone apart from the triumphant Brazilians – and, for a week or so, the Irish.
Thirty years on, football fandom is on the rise in the United States. This summer will be Fifa’s second chance to convince Americans about the merits of the 90-minute scoreless draw.
“I remember watching Pelé playing on a team called the Cosmos,” Trump said, reaching into his bag of memories and producing an image of the Brazilian great in his brilliant New York Cosmos strip. It was actually the most interesting remark of the entire two hours.
“And I said, ‘that man can play’. I was pretty young at that point.”
That was in 1975, a year after the World Cup hosted by West Germany. No, Fifa has always had a compromised soul.
[ How do Irish fans get tickets for next summer’s World Cup?Opens in new window ]
It’s there in the bleak footage of the generals at the 1978 tournament in Argentina, through the decision to award the tournament to Russia in 2018, and the human rights abuses of workers ahead of the Qatar tournament. Of course, that last World Cup produced a series of wonderfully seductive football matches and was regarded as a triumph.
The people have good intentions, but we are fallible. The gripes and condemnations about Fifa and this show will soon be forgotten. And the summer may be a blazing football success. Infantino will, someday, argue that he simply wrote the how-to manual for political leaders in dealing with Trump.
It fell to US sports legends Tom Brady, Shaq O’Neill and Wayne Gretzky, and current baseball all star Aaron Judge to pull the happy football countries out of the pot.
The Village People arrived on stage to perform YMCA, an enduring favourite in the presidential playlist. Trump, Carney, and Sheinbaum stood together and clapped along. Who says football does not unite?
Outside the snow continued to fall. Hotter days lie ahead.
