Trump, Infantino and Ferdinand’s bad jokes: Inside Fifa’s shambolic and shameful 2026 World Cup draw | OneFootball

Right at the start of events in Washington’s Kennedy Center, Fifa president Gianni Infantino warned “it’s not a normal draw”.

That was saying something. It featured extremely politicised interpretations of the most grave situations in the world, from Gaza to Kosovo, which started to look a lot like propaganda.

It is a tragedy for football that Fifa – the body that is supposed to serve the game – has resorted to this. Somehow, another draw.

The 2026 World Cup draw ultimately formed an utterly dismal spectacle.

The description that was already spreading around the Kennedy Center and beyond was that “this was much worse than anything that Sepp Blatter could have dreamed up”.

Ronan Evain, the head of Football Supporters Europe, who had earlier criticised the disgraceful ticket pricing that Trump had praised, wondered how much longer “Infantino will be allowed to take football into the gutter”.

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A view of the World Cup ceremony at the Kennedy Center (AP)

Will any federation speak out, given how their event was being used? The FA did not offer a comment when asked by The Independent.

These highly politicised portrayals were in the video explaining why Donald Trump had won Fifa’s inaugural Peace Prize – Infantino, of course, interjecting with the new slogan, “Football unites the world”.

“This is what we want from a leader, a leader that cares about the people,” Infantino gurgled.

All around Washington, you can see flags and banners proclaiming the exact opposite.

At that exact time, reports were already emerging from eastern Congo that fighting had flared, mere hours after the announcement of the DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal.

That merely ensured that all seven conflicts that Fifa was claiming Trump had played a part in ending were anything but close to being solved.

It was far from the only moment that Infantino ensured the world game looked absurd.

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Trump receives a Peace Prize from the Fifa president (Getty)

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Gianni Infantino takes a photo with the leaders of the host countries (AP)

At the first moment that the Fifa president gestured for the cameras to cut to the VIP crowd, interviewer Danny Ramirez shouted that it was a party down there.

Cue shots of men in suits sitting in total silence.

As if to only make the dystopian feel too on the nose, Trump appeared on stage to collect his award with US Marines. War is peace.

Why was a draw for an event as special as the World Cup even being overshadowed by this? This is what this day in Washington is going to be remembered for, after all, not the groups.

The fact that three teams will go through from many groups removes much of the jeopardy, to say nothing of how six countries haven’t yet qualified.

Plenty of history was otherwise repeated.

England will play Panama and Croatia, as they did at different stages in 2018, but also a new World Cup opponent in Ghana. It’s eminently navigable.

Scotland saw a glamour repeat of most of their last World Cup group in 1998, as they face Brazil and Morocco again. That is tough.

The closest to a classic “group of death” was probably I, as France were placed with Senegal and Norway.

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The full World Cup draw on screen at the Kennedy Center (Sam Corum/PA Wire)

The same could not be said of those featuring the hosts, which some of the home nations and Ireland might be fortunate to get into if they get through the play-offs in March.

Ireland could find themselves in Group A, alongside Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. It’s a group that will see the tournament’s opening game replayed for the first time when, in a reversal of 2010, hosts Mexico will take on South Africa.

Northern Ireland or Wales could join the distinctively underwhelming Canada, Qatar and Switzerland. USA get Paraguay and Australia.

It's all a bit soft, a bit like Fifa’s treatment of Trump.

Beyond the servility towards the US president, though, the pervading feel of the day was one of almost suffocating positivity. There were echoes of one of those Scientology videos in how virtually everyone involved – except the distance-keeping Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum – had rictus faces of excitement.

This is what we’re getting with Infantino’s Fifa now: comparisons with propaganda and cults.

The draw otherwise had a garish Wrestlemania feel that is so unnecessary, given the World Cup’s ability to conjure a magic all of its own.

Maybe not “the greatest event mankind has ever seen and will ever see”, as Infantino beamed, but with an emotional purity that was not deserving of this indignity.

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Rio Ferdinand with broadcaster Samantha Johnson and comedian and actor Kevin Hart (AP)

And on and on it went, Rio Ferdinand inexplicably at the centre of yet another needlessly long video.

It did, nevertheless, offer the scope to offer another 10 tiresome football/soccer jokes.

Something that they kept insisting was going to be “fun” was instead, inevitably, so boring. At least when it wasn’t politically astonishing.

Perhaps more time could have been spent on actual logistical preparation. The presence of Trump ensured that there were 90-minute-plus queues in heavy snow outside the Kennedy Center, as virtually everyone was checked by the Secret Service.

That applied to senior Fifa staff and former players, not to mention performers. One musician complained that he had to get in quickly to warm up, given that he needed to use his freezing fingers to play an instrument on stage alongside Andrea Bocelli.

That was one of the moments that evoked the grandeur of the World Cup, but even that was a bit of a bizarre pastiche; Bocelli is no Luciano Pavarotti.

Hosts Kevin Hart and Heidi Klum perhaps summed up the general sense of disconnect by dressing up as if appearing at different events. Klum, meanwhile, promoted Infantino from mere Fifa president to “football’s No 1 fan”.

He then showed why he isn’t by talking about how “Fifa is the number one happiness provider for humanity for over 100 years”.

As any actual football fan knows, following the game is mostly about suffering, albeit shared suffering.

A bit like watching this draw.

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The stage lights up for Robbie Williams (AP)

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Robbie Williams performs alongside Nicole Scherzinger (AP)

There was at least one moment of levity when Infantino evoked his Uefa past by stating: “I used to make draws in a previous life, I like them.”

Why do your best to ruin this one, then?

It says much that Trump himself was perhaps the least undignified figure on stage, outside of Sheinbaum, who didn’t seem to want to be too close to them.

How close is this Fifa to Trump now, though? The US president, proudly wearing his new medal, had said the ticket sales “numbers are beyond” what even “Gianni thought was possible”.

The same could be said of general expectations for what this draw would look like, in so many senses.

“It’s in America, so it has to be a show,” Infantino had explained.

That was at least one thing said on the day that was actually true.