The FIFA Peace Prize handed to Donald Trump last December has landed Gianni Infantino in the middle of a political storm at his own World Cup.
Fifty members of the European Parliament have now written to FIFA, calling for an ethics investigation into how the sport’s governing body came to invent the award in the first place — and then hand it to the sitting U.S. president.
Infantino and Trump have grown strikingly close in the build-up to the tournament. That relationship is now the subject of formal complaints, with critics questioning whether FIFA’s stated political neutrality still counts for anything.
50 MEPs want FIFA to investigate Trump Peace Prize
The letter, as reported by Politico, was signed by around 50 MEPs, and backs an existing ethics complaint first lodged by the campaign group FairSquare in December.
It asks FIFA’s ethics committee to look at both the decision to create the Peace Prize and the choice to give it to Trump.
The central charge is that Infantino broke FIFA’s own statutes, which commit the organization to staying neutral on matters of politics and religion. Critics point to his repeated public backing of the president, including a comment at a U.S. business forum that everyone should support what Trump is doing.
Irish MEP Barry Andrews, one of the figures behind the letter, said the affair risks dragging the tournament’s name through the mud.
He said: “The World Cup is arguably the biggest global event of any kind. It is supposed to unite the world. Yet when FIFA president Gianni Infantino favors one president over another, this brings FIFA and the whole tournament into disrepute.”
The prize was created and handed out against a backdrop of widespread global conflict, and for many, that doesn’t sit right.
The award has already proved an easy target. Jimmy Kimmel mocked the FIFA Peace Prize on his late-night show earlier this year, presenting a spoof version to California governor Gavin Newsom.
FIFA confirmed it received the original FairSquare complaint back in December but has not publicly responded to the MEPs. Infantino, meanwhile, isn’t easing up on his placating, with Trump lined up to present the trophy to the winners.
As for the prize itself, do not expect the US president to be handing it back any time soon — whatever the ethics committee decides.
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