NO-ONE knows whether US President Donald Trump is still sulking under the stairs after the Nobel committee passed over him in selecting their winner of the 2025 Peace Prize (they chose another rightwinger instead, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado).

No-one knows either whether Fifa’s announcement of its own “peace prize,” to be awarded by its president Gianni Infantino during the World Cup draw to be held on December 5 in Washington DC is simply a craven scheme to compensate the sulker in the White House for his Nobel snub. 

And no-one actually knows who will choose the recipient of Fifa’s first peace prize. Fifa and Infantino have offered no details about the selection process, yet another ominous chapter in a leadership style that is consistently opaque. All we know is what little Infantino has thus far stated publicly; that “it’s fundamental to recognise the outstanding contribution of those who work hard to end conflicts and bring people together in a spirit of peace.”

That led to an immediate frenzy of speculation as to whether Trump would be its first recipient. It’s not an entirely far-fetched possibility, however repellent and entirely undeserving. As we wrote on these pages after the announcement, Infantino has a fawningly cosy relationship with Trump, and has declared his protestations of at least admiration, if not love, on a number of occasions, calling Trump “a really close friend.”

But the greater hypocrisy is Fifa, the world governing body of football, setting itself up as some sort of exemplar of peacemaking. Fifa has refused to ban or suspend Israel’s football teams while their country orchestrates a genocide in Gaza. That has allowed the continued participation of Maccabi Tel Aviv, who were allowed to play Aston Villa last Thursday, even though their fans were banned from attendance due to their extreme levels of racially motivated violence and hooliganism. 

Fifa did not object when the Union of European Football Associations welcomed Israel as a member, even though Israel is in west Asia. This happened when, after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, many Arab nations refused to play Israel when it was still a member of the Asian Football Confederation, leading to Israel’s expulsion from the AFC in 1974. The Israel Football Association was granted full membership of Uefa in 1994.

If you Google “why is Israel part of Europe” in the context of its Uefa membership, the telling answer is “due to its geopolitical ties, cultural similarities, and participation in European organisations.” Those “cultural similarities” with Europe are why, many argue, Israel has no legitimate right to claim Palestine as its historical homeland.

One might also argue that Fifa should ban not only Israeli teams but US ones as well, since without US funds and arms, Israel could not have embarked on its extermination of the Palestinian people, still underway in both Gaza and the West Bank, despite the ceasefire it continues to violate. Germany and the United Kingdom are also complicit, but the US is the driver without whom the genocide doesn’t happen.

For someone about to hand over a peace prize, Infantino certainly has some interesting friends. In October, there was Infantino at the Gaza ceasefire summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, preening on stage with real dictators and would-be ones, including Trump, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. According to Infantino, he was there to build hope and peace through football. But he used the occasion to join the chorus of voices calling for Trump to get the Nobel Peace Prize.

Fifa continues to allow Rwanda to play, even though the country and its leader, Paul Kagame, are seen as directly responsible for the current genocide in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. And Fifa plays in the United Arab Emirates, the country driving the genocide in Sudan, where the numbers of deaths have now potentially exceeded those in Gaza (although accurate counts in both cases are highly challenging and all estimates can be assumed to be far lower than the reality.)

Infantino has been pictured with Kagame on a number of occasions while singing the Rwandan leader’s praises, seemingly oblivious to the slaughter next door in DRC, where Rwanda arms and supports the rebel group currently known as M23 but which has gone through several iterations and name changes.

In March 2023, Infantino praised Kagame and the authoritarian King Mohammed VI of Morocco, the fourth richest monarch in the world, as “outstanding personalities” who “have transformed their countries, by believing in their people.”

Infantino has also been credited with securing an uncontested bid by Saudi Arabia to host the Men’s World Cup in 2034 under controversial circumstances. Prior to the selection of Saudi Arabia, a group of lawyers submitted a paper warning Fifa that it would be in breach of its own human rights rules in awarding the World Cup to Saudi Arabia.  

“Saudi Arabia’s present disregard for human rights in several crucial areas undoubtedly violates that policy,” read the complaint. “The central point is that Fifa simply cannot, in particular given the terms of its own policy, permit Saudi Arabia to host the World Cup as matters currently stand.” However, on December 11, 2024, Fifa announced Saudi Arabia as the 2034 host country.

At issue is Saudi Arabia’s record of suppression in the areas of freedom of speech, women’s rights and the death penalty in particular, as well as its treatment of migrants and arbitrary arrests of citizens.

Athletes in other sports have also urged a boycott of events in Saudi Arabia, most notably tennis legends Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova who penned a January 2024 opinion piece published in the Washington Post opposing a decision by the Women’s Tennis Association to play its year-end WTA Finals finals there.

“Not only is this a country where women are not seen as equal, it is a country where the current landscape includes a male guardianship law that essentially makes women the property of men,” the pair wrote. 

“A country which criminalises the LGBTQ community to the point of possible death sentences. A country whose long-term record on human rights and basic freedoms has been a matter of international concern for decades.”

Their article prompted considerable blowback and the event was duly held there with no player boycotting but the pair received support from another retired tennis champion, John McEnroe. “I wouldn’t encourage it personally, the Saudi thing,” McEnroe said. “I don’t think that’s something that we should be pursuing, per se.”

Similarly, F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, an advocate for LGBT rights, has criticised his sport for racing in Saudi Arabia. Before the 2021 grand prix there, Hamilton said he would wear his rainbow motif helmet as a statement and continue to wear it the following week in Abu Dhabi “because it is an issue. If anyone wants to take time to read what the law is for the LGBT+ community, it is pretty terrifying. There are changes that need to be made,” he said.

The FIA, F1’s governing body, responded by introducing a new rule in 2023 that requires drivers to seek written permission for political, religious, or personal statements, something Hamilton objected to, saying the sport was “going in the wrong direction.”

The issue of a sports boycott has been at the forefront of discussions about how to push Israel to end its genocide and its apartheid regime in Gaza and the West Bank. The example of the successful sports boycott of South Africa is often cited (there were other boycotts as well.) 

However, for the white supremacist Afrikaners in power for so long in South Africa, sport was a religion. Being cut off from the international sporting community, especially in rugby, was tantamount to a death sentence to them. 

It’s not clear whether Israel would feel the same level of pain, but a sports boycott still needs to be one in an entire quiver of tactics to further isolate Israel and indeed any country intent on kicking a football around at home while facilitating a genocide elsewhere.

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.