Not long after President Trump missed out on the Nobel Peace Prize that he openly campaigned for, his friend Gianni Infantino got to work.
Mr. Infantino, president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, who had publicly lobbied for Mr. Trump to receive the peace prize, simply had his organization establish its own. The announcement of the “FIFA Peace Prize — Football Unites the World” was so hastily arranged that it surprised several of the body’s most senior officials, including board members and vice presidents, according to four soccer executives briefed on the events.
On Friday, FIFA is scheduled to announce the award winner along with the draw for the 2026 men’s World Cup finals. While the results of the draw will be unpredictable, there is little doubt about who will receive the peace prize.
Why FIFA established a peace prize owes less to sports and more to Mr. Infantino’s efforts to ingratiate himself with Mr. Trump.
Mr. Infantino has lauded Mr. Trump at almost every opportunity, attending events that have little to do with soccer, handing over major FIFA trophies to Mr. Trump and presiding over FIFA’s rental of office space in Trump Tower in New York two years after the organization opened a gleaming North American hub in Miami.
The Trump Tower office is empty much of the time, according to three of the executives and a fourth official, all of whom are familiar with how FIFA uses the space. They, like others cited in this article, requested anonymity to to discuss private FIFA matters. FIFA did not answer questions beyond saying that the organization paid “market rent” for the Trump Tower office space.
Friday’s event is being held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, a public-private space whose leadership Mr. Trump has stacked with loyalists. Democrats have accused the Kennedy Center of giving FIFA a sweetheart deal to use the venue, a claim that the center has denied.
FIFA and Mr. Infantino have said that close relationships with the U.S. government and with Mr. Trump are vital to ensuring a successful World Cup. The tournament will be played mostly in the United States, with games also in Canada and Mexico, requiring elaborate coordination.
Mr. Trump has welcomed Mr. Infantino into his orbit, recently calling him “my boy” and embracing the planning for the World Cup. Mr. Trump established a government task force run by Andrew Giuliani, son of his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, to ensure the tournament goes smoothly.
As the Trump administration makes it more difficult for foreign travelers to obtain visas, a goal of the task force is to ensure visitors for the World Cup can enter quickly, officials have said. One initiative would prioritize visa appointments for World Cup ticket holders. (The past two World Cup hosts, Qatar and Russia, granted visa-free travel to ticket holders.)
Mr. Trump has also seized on the World Cup as a tool to wield influence, using the economic benefits that come with hosting a game as a political cudgel against Democratic politicians. He has threatened to pull World Cup matches from Boston, for example, after clashing with its mayor.
A White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, said that Mr. Trump was “excited to attend” the draw and that the administration’s partnership with Mr. Infantino would deliver “one of the most iconic sporting events in history.”
The relationship between the American president and Mr. Infantino dates to Mr. Trump’s first term, when FIFA selected the United States to co-host the 2026 World Cup. A regular in the Oval Office, Mr. Infantino has also traveled thousands of miles to attend events with Mr. Trump. After touring the Persian Gulf with Mr. Trump in May, Mr. Infantino arrived hours late to FIFA’s own annual meeting in Paraguay, prompting European soccer leaders to walk out.
Praise and privileges are offered in both directions. Mr. Trump invited Mr. Infantino to Egypt in October to mark the Gaza cease-fire deal. He was the only sports official there.
“The president of FIFA — Gianni Infantino,” Mr. Trump exclaimed at a Miami business summit in November, adding, “Wow, Gianni, my boy. I didn’t know he was going to be here.”
Despite FIFA statutes mandating officials’ political neutrality, Mr. Infantino, who has described Mr. Trump as a “really close friend,” has also offered support for Mr. Trump’s agenda. “We should all support what he’s doing because I think it’s looking pretty good,” Mr. Infantino said at the gathering in Miami.
Miguel Maduro, a former head of governance at FIFA, said that while the organization valued good relationships with national leaders, Mr. Infantino went too far in lauding the president’s record.
“That is clearly, in my view, a violation of the duty of political neutrality imposed by FIFA’s code of ethics,” Mr. Maduro said. FIFA did not give a response to his criticism.
Mr. Infantino’s trips to the White House often end with his leaving a gift. During an August visit, he showed off a replica of the men’s World Cup trophy. Mr. Trump praised the “beautiful piece of gold,” then asked to keep it.
At that meeting, Mr. Trump announced that the World Cup draw would be held at the Kennedy Center. To prepare, FIFA is occupying the center for three weeks, prompting the cancellation of much of its lucrative holiday season schedule.
FIFA had been considering venues in Las Vegas and Nashville but pivoted to Washington after Mr. Infantino and Mr. Trump shared a suite at a soccer game in New Jersey in July, Mr. Giuliani told The Associated Press. The sports stars Wayne Gretzky and Tom Brady, who joined them, will also take part. FIFA invited the Village People, who sing the Trump anthem “Y.M.C.A.,” to perform.
Details of the event contract suggested that FIFA would not pay to use the Kennedy Center, costing it millions of dollars in lost revenue. A Kennedy Center spokeswoman, Roma Daravi, said FIFA was paying $5 million in unspecified sponsorships and donating another $2.4 million.
The contract made no mention of those payments. Asked for comment, Ms. Daravi referred to a letter from the Kennedy Center president, Richard Grenell, which noted that FIFA was paying the event’s total expenses rather than a rental fee. “A simple rental fee would not have been enough to cover the magnitude of the event,” Mr. Grenell wrote.
In the sports world, the World Cup stands alone in scale. The complexity of the 2026 edition — 104 matches, the most in the tournament’s 95-year history, staged across three countries — has required yearslong planning.
The World Cup task force, run out of the Department of Homeland Security, has more than a dozen staffers working with federal, state and local officials to coordinate efforts, a Trump administration official said. Every agency involved has had to submit a report about efforts to enhance security in the 11 U.S. host cities.
Mr. Trump has threatened to upend those plans with warnings about pulling games from cities he deems unsafe.
Mr. Infantino was drawn into the debate at the White House last month when Mr. Trump was asked about the election of Katie Wilson, a self-described socialist, as mayor of Seattle. The president said that if he saw “the sign of any trouble,” he would push to take away the city’s World Cup hosting duties.
“We’ll say, ‘Gianni, can I say we will move?’” Mr. Trump said. He added: “I don’t think you’re going to have this problem.” Standing next to him, Mr. Infantino responded, “Safety and security is the No. 1 priority for a successful World Cup.”
As for any peace accolades, Mr. Infantino may have been upstaged. The White House said this week that the U.S. Institute of Peace had been renamed for Mr. Trump.
Tariq Panja is a global sports correspondent, focusing on stories where money, geopolitics and crime intersect with the sports world.
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