FIFA Announces a New Prize Nobody Asked For | OneFootball

Breaking news out of Switzerland, as FIFA announced yesterday the creation of a new award that will be bestowed on December 5th during the final draw of the upcoming World Cup. Apparently the FIFA executives thought the draw for the world’s largest soccer tournament by itself wasn’t a big enough attraction.

The announcement comes on the same day FIFA President Gianni Infantino attended the America Business Forum in Miami, FL (which ends on Nov. 6th). He addressed over 5,000 attendees, highlighting soccer’s continued growth and promoting the upcoming World Cup to be held in the United States next summer. The forum’s stated mission “connecting visions that create the future” was particularly sports-centric this year, with legends like Lionel Messi, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal in the crowd.

So What’s the Prize?

The award is called the “FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World”, and to get a better understanding of it, I present the exact verbiage from FIFA.com

The “FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World” will be bestowed on behalf of all football-loving people from all around the world – more than five billion of the world’s population. With their daily actions in and for football, all these people contribute to FIFA’s motto “Football Unites the World” as they unite girls and boys, women and men around passion, joy, hope and happiness and it is therefore only fitting that a special award recognises a special achievement.

Questions

Aside from reading like a press release from Panem’s president Coriolanus Snow, it raises some questions. The first one: Will the “football-loving people from all around the world”, on whose behalf this honor is bestowed, get to vote on who wins? Apparently not.

Which leads to a second question: how exactly is the award selected? At time of publication the selection process is unknown, though we know “the award will be presented to individuals who, through their unwavering commitment and their special actions, have helped to unite people all over the world in peace and consequently deserve a special and unique recognition.” Source: FIFA.com

A third question was asked by my colleague Zooey Davenport, who is our resident fashion maven on all things soccer-related: What’s the prize going to look like? Is it a trophy? Alas, no news on that on the FIFA website exists.

What’s Gianni Think?

FIFA President Gianni Infantino, whose casual resemblance to Dr. Evil is entirely circumstantial and not reflective on his character in any way, went on to add (though nobody asked him to): “In an increasingly unsettled and divided world, it’s fundamental to recognise the outstanding contribution of those who work hard to end conflicts and bring people together in a spirit of peace. Football stands for peace, and on behalf of the entire global football community, the FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World will recognise the enormous efforts of those individuals who unite people, bringing hope for future generations.”

Infantino posted this on his Instagram. He sure loves that logo which was definitely NOT AI-generated.

Source: gianni_infantino on Instagram

So Who Could Win?

One high-profile person we know who WON’T be in the running for the award is Evangelos Marinakis, whose trial in Greece began yesterday for instigating football violence and running a criminal gang. That’s the very opposite vibe of “football stands for peace.”

Of course, you don’t have to be a savant to know who the likely winner of this contrived sinecure will be. Hint: they also spoke at the Forum.