Trump & Infantino: Why the friendship?
The Spanish investigative website El Orden Mondial wrote: If anyone can attend the signing of the Abraham Accords, the front row of the US presidential inauguration, or the peace meeting between Israel and Hamas, it is very likely that person is Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA.
In recent years, wherever Donald Trump has been, the president of FIFA has usually been there. These two figures, the president of the most powerful country in the world and the president of the most popular sport in the world, have developed a strange friendship based on common interests to achieve their goals.
Trump has used the 2026 World Cup to increase his influence and turn it into a tool for domestic politics; the other seeks to consolidate the football industry in the most powerful country in the world.
The United States will co-host the 2026 World Cup with Mexico and Canada. But Infantino’s camaraderie, praise, and affectionate treatment of Trump are completely different from his treatment of other hosts. At the group stage draw last Friday, FIFA presented Trump with the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize, an award for “exceptional actions for peace and unity.” The award, a kind of encouragement to Trump after failing to win the Nobel Peace Prize, added to other gifts such as the gold edition of the World Cup, which Infantino gave him in August, saying, “only winners can lift this trophy.” Apparently, it’s not just footballers who can achieve this feat now.
The draw was originally supposed to be held in Las Vegas, not Washington, D.C. But Trump announced that the ceremony would be held at the capital’s Kennedy Center, a cultural and bipartisan hub that he has effectively taken over for his political and business purposes. As a result, FIFA is set to use the venue for three weeks rent-free, paying around $5 million.
What does Trump want from Infantino?
Trump has always preferred personal relationships to institutional ones. He gets along better with people who, like him, act as they please. In Infantino, he has found an ideal partner to turn sport into a political tool. In keeping with his personalist style, Trump’s strategy relies on his media presence to show himself “close to the people,” as when he stood with Chelsea players as they lifted the Club World Cup in the United States in July. He is also using the special venue to negotiate, something he has done before at the American football Super Bowl and golf’s Ryder Cup, the first time a president has ever attended.
With the World Cup, Trump’s main goal is the same as any government hosting a major sporting event: to link the event to its own government.
In 2018, in Trump’s first term, the United States won over other candidates and became the host. Now back in the White House, Trump intends to make the World Cup his personal achievement and make the most of it politically, before, during, and after the tournament. And if all this is accompanied by a smile and the company of the FIFA president, so much the better.
Trump also has no qualms about turning the World Cup into a weapon in domestic politics. Eleven of the 16 host cities are located on American soil, which increases the country’s weight in the competition. Hosting a tournament can transform a city’s tourism, trade and international image, and Trump knows this well. Hence, he has promptly threatened, with Infantino’s tacit approval, to change the host city suddenly if there is a security problem.
Nine of the 11 cities are controlled by Democrats, and Trump is at odds with them: from Los Angeles over anti-immigration policies and the California wildfires, to New York and Seattle over new socialist mayors, to Boston over pro-Palestinian protests. He has threatened to take away their hosting rights and give them to more aligned cities, a tool for political pressure.