Why is FIFA President Gianni Infantino courting President Trump?

About 30 minutes into Friday’s World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center, a landmark that Donald Trump would like to rename for himself, the president was called on stage to receive an award from FIFA chief Gianni Infantino.

The so-called FIFA Peace Prize didn’t exist five weeks ago. And when Infantino created it, there were never any candidates for the award beyond Trump, who has campaigned hard but unsuccessfully for a Nobel Peace Prize. That made Friday’s presentation feel awkward and uncomfortable for just about everyone other than Infantino and Trump.

“You definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize for your action, for what you have obtained in your way,” Infantino said as Trump grabbed his medal and draped it around his own neck.

“This is truly one of the great honors of my life,” Trump said.

President Trump receives the FIFA Peace Prize from FIFA president Gianni Infantino during the 2026 World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center on Friday.

(Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images)

For the two men the exchange was just the latest in a strange bromance that has deepened in equally beneficial ways as June’s World Cup has drawn closer.

“It’s two massive egos stroking each other,” said a former U.S. Soccer official, who asked that their name not be used to avoid possible reprisal. “I assume Infantino’s ulterior motive is to get the most possible support from the government and make sure Trump, despite some unhelpful comments, does nothing to interfere with the tournament.

“For Trump, the opportunity to claim credit for hosting the world’s biggest sporting event in front of worldwide audience is irresistible.”

A FIFA spokesperson said Infantino must maintain collaborative relationships with host countries and noted he has forged strong bonds with Trump along with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.

“As per the FIFA Statutes, ‘the President shall seek to maintain and develop good relations between and among FIFA, the confederations, member associations, political bodies and international organisations,’” the FIFA statement read. “Furthermore, the FIFA President must maintain good relationships with leaders of host countries to ensure a successful event for all.”

For FIFA and Infantino, a longtime soccer executive who used his connections and smarts to climb to the top of the world’s most popular sport, the partnership is meant to win the president’s backing for, and limit his meddling in, what could be the most lucrative World Cup ever.

In recent months Infantino, who had a front-row seat at the president’s inauguration in January, has invited Trump to present players from Club World Cup champion Chelsea with their winners medals — one of which Trump pocketed — followed the president to Egypt in October for a summit to finalize a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, and rented space in Trump’s Manhattan office building.

Infantino has also been a frequent guest at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, and was able to greet Trump on the Kennedy Center stage Friday only because he abruptly moved the World Cup draw from Las Vegas to Washington, D.C., at Trump’s request, erasing months of planning.

For Trump, America’s sports fan in chief, the relationship means a role in history’s largest, most complex sporting event and the attention and acclaim that comes with that.

At the same time, Trump’s mercurial management style and his penchant for breaking with allies means Infantino can take nothing for granted. As a result, says David Goldblatt, a British sportswriter and a visiting professor at Pitzer College in Claremont, Infantino’s actions have been shrewd, if occasionally humbling.

Chelsea’s Reece James and Robert Sanchez are joined by President Trump as they celebrate their FIFA Club World Cup win on July 13.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Confronted with a powerful yet unpredictable leader in a country that’s about to host a World Cup that could produce revenues of more than $9 billion, the FIFA president, a former Trump critic, has chosen to put those differences aside and appeal to Trump’s love of tributes and baubles rather than risking his wrath.

“This is a different world,” Goldblatt said of Infantino’s fears that Trump could harm the World Cup if he chooses. “This is not how states and heads of state used to operate.”

Infantino, 55, became head of FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, in 2016, when he was elected to replace the scandal-ridden Sepp Blatter in a vote floor-managed by Sunil Gulati, then president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. At the time Infantino, who was born in Switzerland to Italian immigrant parents, was seen as a progressive reformer who would take the hidebound and conservative organization, the most influential and powerful governing body in global sports, in a different direction.

And he has delivered on some of that, growing the fields for both the men’s and women’s World Cups, increasing the prize money for the women’s tournament, expanding other competitions such as the Club World Cup and nearly quadrupling FIFA’s cash reserves. At the same time, he has also become comfortable forming alliances with autocrats.

During the run-up to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Infantino developed such a close relationship with Vladimir Putin he was called to the Kremlin after the tournament to accept the Order of Friendship medal, one of Russia’s highest awards. That friendship has apparently endured: On Friday, the investigative news outlet Follow the Money reported FIFA has ordered multiple European clubs to pay transfer fees of up to $30 million to Russian teams despite international sanctions and banking restrictions imposed on the country following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ahead of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, Infantino moved to the emirate, renting a house and enrolling two of his children in local schools. He dismissed well-documented human rights abuses as Western hypocrisy and, on the eve of tournament, sided with the country’s leaders by prohibiting team captains from wearing rainbow-colored armbands and banning longtime sponsor Budweiser from selling beer at World Cup venues.

During Trump’s first administration, Infantino strongly criticized the Muslim ban the president tried to enact, fearing the possible effect it would have on international sports. This time around Infantino has all but ignored Trump’s decision to limit citizens of 19 countries — including World Cup qualifiers Haiti and Iran — from entering the U.S., something that will have a very real impact on next summer’s tournament.

“Infantino is intoxicated by the elite circles of power, status and wealth, into which he has been elevated,” Goldblatt said. “Now he’s king of the universe and has been moving in pretty exalted circles. How does he cope in that world?”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino, right, smiles while clasping hands to greet Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 14, 2018, at the close of the World Cup in Russia.

(Yuri Kadobnov / Associated Press)

Infantino’s shift has caused concern and unease among many global soccer officials, who worry that he has abandoned FIFA’s mandated political neutrality. Delegates from UEFA, the governing body for European soccer for which Infantino used to work, walked out of May’s FIFA Congress in Paraguay after Infantino arrived hours late, delayed by a trip to the Middle East with Trump.

The FIFA president’s “private political interests does the game no service,” the delegates said.

Or maybe it does, says Adam Beissel, as associate professor of sports leadership and management at Miami University in Ohio and the author of several books and studies of FIFA’s inner workings.

“Maybe it was all worth it to get the federal subsidies for the World Cup, to get the sort of support to host an event that’s going to generate $9 billion of revenue,” he said.

By all accounts the friendship between Trump and Infantino is genuine, if ultimately transactional. Trump calls the FIFA leader “Johnny” and “my boy,” while Infantino has blindsided his own staff by announcing the creation of the FIFA Peace Prize, and presenting it to a president whose administration continues to bomb alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and threatens military action against Venezuela.

The FIFA president would surely like it if Trump stopped threatening to pull World Cup games out of blue cities — an impossibility this close to the tournament, yet a threat Trump delights in making nonetheless — and eased his travel ban for visitors who would like to attend the World Cup.

But at this point he’d probably settle for the president simply allowing the show to go on. And if the cost of that is a trophy for Trump, that’s a price Infantino seems willing to pay.