FIFA’s Missed Moral Moment : Trump spits in the face of The Xmas Truce

During the First World War, the Flanders region in northern Belgium witnessed some of the most intense battles. The British and German frontlines were so close to each other that one could almost trade pleasantries with the enemy. Astonishingly enough, on Christmas Day, 1914, the German and British soldiers agreed to lay down their arms, albeit momentarily, meet in no-man’s land, and have an informal game of football with makeshift balls. Some even say that there were gifts exchanged between the two sides. Many such instances were reported along the frontlines, where enemy troops kicked a tin can with each other. This famously came to be dubbed the ‘Christmas truce football match’. In a way, football brought peace, if only for a couple of hours.

Introduced on December 5, 2025, the ‘FIFA Peace Prize – Football unites the world’, was established to “recognize the outstanding contribution of those who work hard to end conflicts and bring people together in a spirit of peace”, according to FIFA President Gianni Infantino. It took around 111 years for FIFA to realize how important football has been, not only as a sport, but also a harbinger of peace, a beacon of hope in areas affected by man-made calamities. A century too late to announce an award that should have been at the forefront of football award ceremonies since 1914.

Since Christmas Day, 1914, football or football players have used the sport, or their own popularity that came through it, to bring peace on numerous occasions around the world. Former Chelsea forward and Côte d’Ivoire legend Didier Drogba helped form a truce in the first Ivorian Civil War after his famous speech, where he said, “Ivorian men and women… We beg you: lay down your arms. Hold elections. Everything will be better”. Drogba would eventually be named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2010 for using his platform for peace and not politics.

Similarly, during the Liberian Civil War, George Weah publicly campaigned for peace, sponsored youth football programmes to keep children out of the militia and used his stature to support humanitarian efforts. Or the time in 2007, when Iraq was in the middle of a bloody sectarian violence and witnessed a sharp drop in violence after their multi-ethnic national team won the Asian Cup.

Even a study by researchers at Stanford University found that after Mohamed Salah signed for Liverpool in 2017, reported anti-Muslim hate crimes in the Merseyside area dropped by about 16–19% compared to what would have been expected. Football has that power.

Still, neither Drogba, Weah, Salah, nor the likes of Marcus Rashford, Johan Cruyff or even Jurgen Klopp have been nominated for the FIFA Peace Prize, let alone win it. Even their efforts are hardly recognized, but felt by millions of people affected by wars, illnesses and disease. In all its irony, the first person to ever win a FIFA Peace Prize, Donald Trump, has probably as little a connection to the beautiful game as one could imagine, let alone expectations of having played the sport, or knowing its rules. What Trump does know is to take an anti-humanitarian stand on immigrants and refugees. Or being accused of sexual assault by over 25 women. Or being impeached twice. None of these makes him a Peace Prize nominee anywhere in the world; but for FIFA, they strangely qualify.

In all honesty, the FIFA Peace Prize should have been born to existence a long time ago. There were numerous humanitarian efforts where footballers should have been recognized for their efforts, and football should have been used more prominently as a tool to bring peace. Now, FIFA has used a perverted form where peace is being used as a political tool, where humanitarians take a back seat to authoritarians, and where there is no line between sports governance and political power.

Ask those allied troops in 1914, if they could wrap their head around a right-wing politician winning a football award for peace, while being unbeknownst to the sport, the rules of the sport or even the great humanitarians that it bore. They would turn in their graves. FIFA has not only shot itself in the foot, but attacked the very fabric of what makes football, football – harmony. In the end, Donald Trump winning the FIFA Peace Prize is like Tom Cruise winning the 100m Olympic Gold while the Usain Bolts and the likes are forced to wait in the shadows by the IOC. It is perverse, it is an abomination, and it should have no place in sports.