The world’s top soccer officials were preparing for the World Cup kickoff event in Washington, D.C., last year when FIFA President Gianni Infantino got a glimmer of inspiration.
What if the December meeting, which is usually of interest only to football fans, could be turned into a geopolitical news event? Infantino, the Swiss lawyer who ruled the world’s most popular sport for nearly a decade, will create a new award that has nothing to do with kicking a ball.
They called it the FIFA Peace Prize—and its first recipient will be President Trump.
According to two FIFA sources, when Infantino presented his idea to the organization’s top committee, few in the room had any idea it was going to happen. The FIFA Council, the sport’s international governing body, was not quite sure what to do with it. He had never done anything like this.
Yet a few weeks later, on the Kennedy Center stage, the entire scene played out exactly as Infantino had dreamed it. He handed Trump a trophy and placed a medal around his neck and pledged “the support of the entire football community,” he said, “to help you make peace.”
Infantino’s only hope in return was that the leader of the free world would help make his $11 billion soccer tournament a success. He was against changing policy, US travel restrictions and, in one case, an ongoing war with a country at the World Cup.
A senior administration official said there were laughs about the presentation behind the scenes and some in the know rolling their eyes, given how obsessed Trump was with the Nobel Prize. But, he added, “It was honestly a smart idea on their part.”
Infantino, 56, whose World Cup begins Thursday in Mexico City, has made it his specialty to court the world’s most influential power brokers. More than a decade ago, he was a relatively obscure character outside the football world. Now, he has befriended world leaders and sympathized with Trump.
“Without his involvement and his involvement, it would have been impossible to hold the World Cup in the United States,” Infantino said before the opening game.
In the past year, Infantino has appeared at the president’s side at least a dozen times, from the Oval Office to the Gaza peace summit in Egypt. If Infantino had learned one thing, it was that he needed to keep Trump happy to keep the World Cup on track.
“President Trump and Gianni Infantino have a true friendship built on a common vision,” said Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force on the World Cup. “President Trump is the most charismatic leader I have ever seen, and Gianni is not far behind.”
Organizing the World Cup is a huge undertaking, no matter where the tournament is held, which is why FIFA has often appreciated the cooperation of centralized governments who can overcome obstacles and keep the tournament running smoothly. (The previous two editions were held in Russia and Qatar.) But the challenge of coordinating a World Cup co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada is greater than anything previously attempted in the tournament’s 96-year history.
An unprecedented 48 teams are participating, including four – Haiti, Iran, Ivory Coast and Senegal – under full or partial travel restrictions. Apart from some sporadic delays, all 1,248 players have got visas. This does not include every team official or all support staff at the tournament. On Monday, FIFA confirmed that a Somali referee had been denied entry to the US, but did not give a reason.
“FIFA is not involved in the host country’s immigration processes, including visa decisions,” the organization said.
The tension between parachuting into the world’s largest sporting event and running a country’s bureaucracy is what makes the enterprise so complex. According to a person familiar with Infantino’s thinking, this is why FIFA considers Infantino’s relationship with Trump essential.
“Gianni has no access issues with the president,” the administration official said. “Anytime he wants to see her or talk to her, he can see her.”
Infantino’s courtship of Trump has drawn much criticism, particularly in Europe, where he is seen as attributing the popularity of the World Cup to an unpopular American leader. After being awarded the FIFA Peace Prize, the human rights non-profit organization FairSquare filed a formal ethics complaint with FIFA, alleging that Infantino had violated his statutory commitment to neutrality.
FairSquare wrote, “This complaint goes far beyond Infantino’s support for President Donald Trump’s political agenda.” “More broadly, it is about how FIFA’s absurd governance structure has allowed Gianni Infantino to blatantly violate the organization’s rules.”
Trump isn’t much of a football fan either—though he played at the New York Military Academy for one season in high school. But he knows the global spotlight will shine. The tournament will feature what Infantino described as “104 Super Bowls” over five weeks, and 11 of the 16 World Cup venues are in the Americas.
This tournament holds a special place for Infantino. He may have inherited Russia and Qatar from his predecessor, but he has overseen this North American World Cup from the beginning. And Infantino realizes more clearly than anyone how much he is indebted to American intervention.
“Together we will make not only America great again, but the entire world,” Infantino said in a video during Trump’s second inauguration.
Infantino came to power following a lengthy investigation led by the Justice Department that exposed widespread corruption at FIFA and led to the ouster of former president Sepp Blatter in 2015. Infantino was elected to the top job by promising to use FIFA’s vast cash reserves to disperse millions of dollars of funding to the development of football associations around the world.
And through it all, Infantino had the support of American soccer officials, who helped him campaign for the job and garner crucial votes in the North America, Central America and Caribbean region. On election day, the former president of US Soccer guided Infantino around the Zurich Hallenstadion to shake hands with delegations from FIFA’s then-207 member associations.
Up to that time, Infantino’s most public role in football was hosting tournament draws for European football’s governing body, UEFA. Born in the Valais canton of Switzerland, near the Italian border, he was a lawyer by training and joined UEFA in 2000. Later, he will stand on the stage in Nyon and enjoy a Champions League knockout round matchup, and then return to his quiet job as UEFA general secretary.
In a whirlwind year, Infantino was thrust into the role of FIFA’s candidate for improved transparency. After taking office, he insisted on replacing the marble floor of the FIFA Council Chamber with green carpet to mimic a football pitch. They also discovered a safe kept in Blatter’s office, which Infantino said once contained cash and files on Blatter’s enemies. Infantino refused to touch it.
“There was money exchanged under the table,” reads Infantino’s official biography published by FIFA this year. “Since February 2016, it has been out in the open for all to see.”
It was also clear to see that Infantino had developed a penchant for attention. He moved easily among heads of state, knowing when and how to pay respects to them. His social media feed is a long series of public appearances and birthday wishes.
In the opening game of the 2018 World Cup, he placed himself between Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. After several years, Saudi Arabia would win the right to host the 2034 World Cup as the only candidate in the race.
Around the same time, Infantino was developing friendships that opened doors to the Oval Office. One was the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. And the other was a former Goldman Sachs partner turned president of US Soccer, named Carlos Cordeiro – who maintained a relationship with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. That crowd pulled him into Trump’s orbit — and Infantino never left.
“I never saw any disagreement between them,” the administration official said.
Relations with the Biden White House were not as close, the person said. So when Trump was reelected, Infantino moved to Washington. Mentioning his name at Trump’s victory rally, he personally attended the inauguration and declared that “This is FIFA at its finest.”
Since then, Infantino has participated in all kinds of events that do not explicitly require the presence of the president of football’s governing body. He has joined Trump at UFC fights, at the unveiling of his Board of Peace and at regular intervals in the Oval Office, where a replica of the World Cup sits behind the Resolute Desk.
Infantino’s ability to push the right buttons for world leaders is not reserved for the president. In New York, he recently met with Mayor Zohran Mamdani amid a public battle over the cost of World Cup match tickets and transportation. Knowing that Mamdani was a big fan of Arsenal in the English Premier League, Infantino arranged for a FaceTime call for him with the club’s famous former manager and current FIFA executive – Arsene Wenger.
The result for Infantino has been an unpleasant presence around American officials when dealing with complex questions of American foreign policy. And no one has taken up more oxygen than what to do about Iran, a squad that has direct ties to the regime. Never before had a national team traveled to a World Cup while actively at war against its hosts or as winners of the FIFA Peace Prize.
As Iran threatened to boycott the tournament, Infantino and Cordeiro worked behind the scenes to move the team’s base camp from California to Tijuana, Mexico, even though all three of Iran’s matches would be in the U.S. And although Trump said he did not care whether it participated or not, Iran is now set to take the field in Los Angeles on June 15.
Trump recently said, “Gianni is fantastic, he’s my friend.” “I said, ‘You do whatever you want. You can have them, you don’t have to have them.'”
But for Infantino it was never in question. FIFA is not accustomed to kicking teams out of its global showdowns – at least not since Egypt missed the boat to Uruguay in 1930. It is a matter of special pride for the FIFA President to field 48 teams for the first time in the history of the World Cup. It also helps that it’s doing so while generating record revenues in the world’s richest sports market.
“For the first time in the 250-year history of the United States, you will not only be invaded but you will be conquered,” he told the U.S. Conference of Mayors last December.
“You will win with football.”
Write to Joshua Robinson joshua.robinson@wsj.com And on Josh Dawsey joshua.docsey@WSJ.com
