Fifa council tells Infantino to scrap or depoliticise peace prize after Trump furore
Gianni Infantino was told at Thursday’s Fifa council meeting to scrap or depoliticise the organisation’s peace prize after backlash over the award to US president Donald Trump, and council members asked Fifa’s social responsibility committee to produce recommendations before the next council meeting in Doha on 16 December.
Several council members demanded the prize be abolished while others urged its removal from the political arena, the Guardian has learned. Infantino began Thursday’s session by saying the peace prize had been handed to the social responsibility committee. Council members later returned to the subject in a series of questions about possible conflicts of interest at Fifa. There is a strong view among council members that the prize in its current form is tainted by association with Trump.
Some attendees raised the prospect that Trump could object and create a diplomatic storm if he disapproved of a future recipient. Article two of Fifa’s statutes prohibits any political or governmental interference in football, a point cited by critics as one reason last year’s award provoked a backlash. That combination of legal concern and political sensitivity has driven calls for change.
Fifa’s 22-person social responsibility committee is dominated by representatives from countries loyal to Infantino, a composition that some council members said makes outright abolition unlikely because cancelling the prize would represent a humiliation for the Fifa president. At the same time, there is widespread acceptance among the council that the prize needs to be revised. The committee’s makeup was discussed as a factor in how far reform might go.
One council member told the Guardian the most likely outcome discussed is the reinvention of the peace prize as an award for an individual within football who has delivered exceptional work promoting social harmony and responsibility, with a provision stating it cannot be given to a politician. That proposed restriction was raised as a way to align the prize with Fifa’s rules and to avoid future political controversy.
Fifa announced the creation of its peace prize last November with a stipulation that it would "reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world". Trump was given the award at the men’s World Cup draw in Washington last December, with Infantino presenting the US president with a golden trophy, a medal and a certificate, but the process behind his selection has never been made public.
The social responsibility committee is expected, as part of its review, to set strict parameters for any surviving award and to provide details of a nomination and selection procedure. Those procedural details are to form the basis of the committee’s recommendations.
The committee has been tasked to report its proposals before the council’s next meeting in Doha on 16 December.