FIFA’s World Cup Sycophancy Is Dirtying the Beautiful Game

President Donald Trump finally received his sought-after peace prize on Friday. Except it wasn’t from the Nobel Foundation but from FIFA, an institution charged with overseeing penalty shootouts in soccer rather than geopolitics. I’m not much of a football fan — I prefer rugby — but how can this sycophancy to a world leader who’s pulled his nation out of the Paris Agreement and calls climate change a “con job” serve either athletes or soccer fans?

The award was handed out at a glitzy draw event for the World Cup, set to take place next summer across three countries – Canada, the US and Mexico. Gianni Infantino, head of the governing body, seems to have invented the FIFA Peace Prize as part of a wider effort to ingratiate himself and his organization with the president. Infantino needs to make sure the tournament, which could see as many as 6 million fans flying into North America, runs smoothly; with 11 of the 16 host cities located in the US, Trump is a core piece of that puzzle. But footballers and fans would surely thank him more for taking more note of a serious threat to the sport: climate change.