US President Donald Trump said he was not attending the draw for the 2026 World Cup to receive a prize, but he got one anyway.
Trump, who has campaigned aggressively this year for a Nobel Peace Prize, was given FIFA’s inaugural peace prize for his efforts to promote dialogue and de-escalation in some of the world’s hotspots.
Amid TV cameras and flashbulbs from the international press, Trump dominated the scene at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Friday, placing himself squarely at the center of one of the biggest events in the sporting world.
The United States, along with Canada and Mexico, will host the soccer tournament next year. The prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, were there, too, but it was all Trump’s show.
“This will be unique, this will be stellar, this will be spectacular,” Gianni Infantino, the gregarious president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, said at the opening of the ceremony, talking about next year’s games.
But he could have been talking about the Kennedy Center event itself, which was located in Washington at Trump’s urging.
Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sang “Nessun Dorma,” a favorite of Trump’s and a staple at his campaign rallies, to launch the proceedings.
“Nobody ever thought a thing like this could happen,” Trump said before proceedings got under way, omitting the fact that the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994.
Last month, FIFA announced that a new annual award called the FIFA Peace Prize would be presented at the draw to “reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace.”
A video prior to the presentation celebrated Trump for resolving the war in Gaza and trying to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The trophy, a gold-plated globe carried by upraised hands, was considerably larger than the Nobel, which is just a simple medal.
But Trump got a medal as well and donned it as Infantino lauded him. The president deserved the award for “promoting peace and unity around the world,” Infantino said.
Trump called the award “an awfully nice tribute to you and the game of football, or as we call it, soccer.”
He took a moment to congratulate himself. America, he said, was “not doing too well” before he took office.
“Now, I have to say, we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world,” Trump said.
Trump received the award the same week his administration froze immigration applications from 19 countries after last week’s shooting of two National Guard members in Washington.
It also came days after the president demeaned Somali immigrants in the United States as “garbage” — sparking an outcry both at home and abroad.
Earlier, Trump told reporters he did not care about the prize, but noted that he had “settled eight wars” in his 10 months in office.
“I don’t need prizes. I need to save lives,” Trump said. “I saved millions and millions of lives, and that’s really what I want to do.”
