He craves it, and, to some extent, his desire was satisfied.  President Donald Trump did get a peace prize.  Not the peace prize picked out by self-important Norwegian non-entities, but the inaugural curiosity of FIFA, an organisation famed for opacity, corruption and graft.  What the critics missed in all of this was its sheer appositeness.

In a two-hour ceremony held on 5 December at Washington’s Kennedy Center, which included the World Cup draw for participants at next year’s games, Trump was presented with a prize few FIFA officials seem to know existed.  Last month, FIFA president Gianni Infantino announced the award, expressing the view that Trump also deserved that other coveted gong, the Nobel Peace Prize.  One senior FIFA official boldly told BBC Sport that the football organisation’s prize deserved serious attention: “Why can’t this be bigger than the Nobel Peace Prize?  Football has huge global support, so it’s right that it recognises extraordinary efforts to bring about peace every year.”

That football – grand sport of sublimated aggression, contest and rivalries – is an agent of peace, is one of those shibboleths sporting administrators feed.  Go through the records of any famous club rivalry, and peace is found wanting.  Violence and politics, however, can be found in abundance.  But Infantino did not become FIFA President on his mastery of such details.  His formula was simple if hypocritical: athletes should play and shut up about politics, leaving it to the administrative class to do the rest.

READ: Netanyahu nominates Trump for Nobel Peace Prize

With fawning relish,........

© Middle East Monitor