Fifa's peace prize should be scrapped, not quietly redesigned

Key takeaways

• The Guardian reports that several Fifa council members demanded the peace prize be abolished, while others called for it to be depoliticised.
• Fifa's football social responsibility committee is due to make a recommendation on the award before the council meets in Doha on 16 December.
• If the prize survives in a reformed shape, Donald Trump is likely to remain the only political leader ever to have received it.
• A governing body that needs cooperation from every government cannot also rank political leaders without damaging its own claim to neutrality.
• Depoliticising the award would limit future harm, but it would leave the original decision standing as the prize's defining moment.

What is happening at Fifa over the peace prize?

According to the Guardian, Gianni Infantino was told at Thursday's Fifa council meeting that the peace prize must either change substantially or be abolished. The paper says the council split into two camps. One wanted the award ended outright. The other wanted it kept but taken out of politics, which presumably means that heads of state and government would no longer be eligible.

The matter has been passed to Fifa's football social responsibility committee, which is expected to recommend a course of action before the next council meeting in Doha on 16 December. The Guardian also reports that whatever happens, the US president is likely to stay the only political leader the prize has honoured. Neither the detail of any reformed version nor the committee's leanings are publicly known.

My position is simple. The cleaner option is abolition. A reformed prize would still carry its history, and that history is the problem.

Why has this become an issue now?

The immediate cause is the backlash that followed the award to the US president. Council members do not usually push back against a Fifa president's personal initiatives in public, so reports of open dissent inside the council matter. This looks less like a routine policy review and more like an institution trying to contain the damage from a decision that went wrong.

Timing also matters. The United States is co-hosting the men's World Cup with Canada and Mexico, so relations between Fifa and the US government are unusually close and unusually visible. An award to a host nation's head of state is open to an obvious reading: a governing body thanking a government it needs. Fifa can reject that reading, but it cannot stop people from drawing it.

What background does a newcomer need?

Fifa governs world football through its member associations, and its council is the main body that sets strategy and oversees the administration. The president chairs the council, and the standing committees advise it. When a matter goes to a committee, as this one has, the council is buying time and putting distance between the decision and the people at the top table.

Fifa's own statutes commit it to neutrality on political matters. That principle is practical, not decorative. Fifa's authority rests on governments accepting that football's rules are set by football. When a national association faces state interference, Fifa defends it by insisting that politics and sport are kept apart. Suspensions of associations for government interference only work if Fifa itself is seen to stand outside politics.

A peace prize awarded by the governing body to a serving head of state undercuts that position. It tells governments that Fifa will judge political leaders, and that it can offer honours as well as sanctions.

Who is affected, and how?

The national associations are affected most directly. Every association whose government is cool towards the United States now sits in a Fifa that has publicly honoured the US president. Associations dealing with difficult governments at home lose some of the cover that neutrality gives them. If Fifa makes political judgements, a hostile minister can reasonably ask why theirs should not count.

Council members are affected too. They have to defend the organisation's choices in their own confederations and countries. The dissent the Guardian describes suggests some of them felt they were being asked to carry a decision they had not shaped.

The president's office is affected because the episode raises the question of how far personal initiatives should run before the council approves them. It is not known from the source how the prize was originally approved, but the response suggests some council members feel the process did not include them adequately.

Supporters are affected in a quieter way. Most will never think about a Fifa peace prize. But every time football's governing body looks like a participant in politics, it weakens the case that football belongs to everyone who plays and watches it, whatever their views.

Where do informed people disagree?

The case for keeping the prize in a reformed form deserves a fair hearing. Football can bring people together, and recognising projects that use the game to ease conflict is a reasonable aim. Plenty of grassroots work deserves attention: tournaments in divided communities, coaching in refugee settings, reconciliation programmes run by clubs. A prize restricted to those efforts, with politicians excluded, might do some good and draw attention to work that rarely gets any.

There is also a practical argument. Scrapping the prize would look like an admission of error, and institutions rarely like making those. Reform lets Fifa keep the idea while removing the part that caused the trouble.

The counter-argument, which I find stronger, is that a prize is defined by its first winner. Any future recipient, however worthy, would join a list headed by a serving head of state who received the award during a World Cup cycle in his own country. Each later award would bring that first one back into the news. The grassroots projects that a reformed prize claims to celebrate would be linked to a controversy that has nothing to do with them.

There is also a question about who decides. A depoliticised prize still needs a judging process. Unless that process is independent of the president's office and of the council, which is itself made up of people with political ties, the same pressures could come back. It is not known what selection procedure a reformed prize would use.

What are the practical implications of each option?

Abolition is the simpler path. Fifa would announce that the prize has ended, the single award would remain as a historical fact, and the organisation could point to its statutes on neutrality as the reason. Fifa already has instruments for social responsibility work, so recognition of grassroots projects could carry on through existing programmes without any link to the peace prize name.

Depoliticisation would need new rules. These would include a definition of who counts as a political figure, an eligibility framework, a nominating and judging body, and some protection against future presidents turning the prize back to its original use. Each of those is a place where things can go wrong. The more machinery Fifa builds, the more there is to defend when the next controversy arrives.

There is also the question of message. Abolition says the original idea was wrong. Reform says only the execution was. The council members who want abolition seem to understand that the difference matters to the governments, associations and supporters who were watching.

What should readers watch next?

The first thing to watch is the football social responsibility committee's recommendation and how it is framed. A recommendation to depoliticise will need concrete rules, and the detail will show whether the reform is substantive or cosmetic.

The second is the Doha council meeting on 16 December. Watch whether the council adopts the committee's view, changes it, or defers again. A deferral would suggest the divisions the Guardian describes have not been settled.

The third is how the change is explained. Watch whether any announcement refers to political neutrality, and whether it addresses who approves presidential initiatives in future. An outcome that settles the prize but leaves the approval question open would deal with a symptom and leave the cause in place.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Fifa peace prize?

The Fifa peace prize is an award created by football's world governing body, and its only political recipient so far has been Donald Trump. According to the Guardian, the award drew a backlash, and members of the Fifa council have now told Gianni Infantino that it must either be fundamentally changed or abolished. Its future will be considered by a Fifa committee before the council's next meeting.

Why do Fifa council members want the peace prize scrapped?

The Guardian reports that several council members called for the prize to be abolished after the controversy over the award to the US president. Their reasons are not set out in detail in the source. The wider concern is that a football governing body honouring a political leader conflicts with Fifa's commitment to political neutrality, which it relies on when defending national associations against government interference.

What does depoliticising the Fifa peace prize mean?

Depoliticising the prize would most likely mean keeping the award but excluding political leaders from it, perhaps by redirecting it towards projects that use football to promote peace. The Guardian reports that some council members favour this approach. No detailed proposal has been published, so the eligibility rules, judging process and selection body for any reformed prize are not currently known.

When will Fifa decide the future of the peace prize?

Fifa's football social responsibility committee is due to make a recommendation before the next council meeting, which the Guardian reports will take place in Doha on 16 December. The council would then be expected to consider that recommendation. It is not known whether a final decision will be taken at that meeting or whether the matter could be deferred again.

Will anyone else receive the Fifa peace prize?

That depends on whether the prize is abolished or reformed. If it is scrapped, no one else will receive it. If it is depoliticised, future winners could be organisations or projects rather than politicians. Either way, the Guardian reports that Donald Trump is likely to remain the only political leader ever to have been given the award.

Is Fifa supposed to be politically neutral?

Yes. Fifa's statutes commit the organisation to neutrality on political matters. The principle has practical weight because Fifa uses it to protect national football associations from interference by their governments, sometimes by suspending associations where the state has intervened. Critics of the peace prize argue that honouring a serving head of state weakens Fifa's standing to insist that governments keep politics out of football.

Sources and further reading

• The Guardian, football coverage: the original report on the Fifa council meeting and the demands over the peace prize.
• Fifa statutes: the governing body's founding rules, including its commitments on political neutrality and the role of the council.
• Fifa official communications: council meeting announcements and the remit of standing committees, including football social responsibility.
• Academic work on sports governance: studies of how international sporting bodies manage relations with national governments.