US President Donald Trump said he would not attend the 2026 World Cup draw to receive a prize, but he got it anyway.
Trump, who has campaigned aggressively this year for the Nobel Peace Prize, received the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize for his efforts to promote dialogue and the reduction of tensions in some of the world’s trouble spots.
Amid television cameras and flashes from the international press, Trump dominated the scene at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Friday, placing himself squarely in the center of one of the most important events in the sporting world.
The United States, along with Canada and Mexico, will host the soccer tournament next year. There were also the Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, but it was all Trump’s show.
“This will be unique, it will be stellar, it will be spectacular,” Gianni Infantino, the gregarious president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, said at the opening ceremony, speaking of next year’s games.
But he could have been talking about the Kennedy Center event itself, which was held in Washington at Trump’s behest.
Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sang “Nessun Dorma,” a Trump favorite and a staple at his campaign rallies, to kick off the proceedings.
“No one ever thought something like this could happen,” Trump said before the proceedings began, omitting the fact that the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994.
Last month, FIFA announced that a new annual prize called the FIFA Peace Prize would be awarded in the draw to “reward individuals who have undertaken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace.”
A pre-show video celebrated Trump for resolving the war in Gaza and trying to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The trophy, a gold-plated globe held in the air, was considerably larger than the Nobel Prize, which is nothing more than a simple medal.
But Trump also received a medal and wore it while Infantino praised him. The president deserved the award for “promoting peace and unity around the world,” Infantino said.
Trump called the award “a tremendously nice tribute to you and football, or as we call it, football.”
He took a moment to congratulate himself. The United States, he said, “wasn’t doing very well” before he took office.
“Now I have to say we are the hottest country 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 “trash,” sparking protests both at home and abroad.
Trump previously told reporters he didn’t care about the award but noted that he had “solved eight wars” in his 10 months in office.
“I don’t need awards. I need to save lives,” Trump said. “I saved millions and millions of lives and that’s really what I want to do.”
