The Price of Cynicism - How FIFA Gilds Trump's and Its Own Contempt for Humanity While Continuing to Forget the Dead

Miami - It sounds like a satire on the state of the world: FIFA, that billion-dollar syndicate of officials, corporations, and statesmen, has announced the creation of a "Peace Prize" - and intends to present it, of all places, in Washington this December. A place where Donald Trump, the loudest warmonger of his generation, once again decides the fate of the world.

Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s president, with the fixed smile of a man who has seen too many cameras, called it a "recognition of extraordinary acts for peace." Not a word about the millions who go hungry in the United States under Trump’s policies, not a word about the brutal conduct of ICE authorities, the violations of international law in Venezuela, or the planned ballroom in the White House that has long become a symbol of a presidency that prizes opulence over principle. Instead, the promise to award the prize "on behalf of fans worldwide" - as if an organization that has been mired in corruption and self-indulgence for years could still speak in the name of the people. And it will be interesting to find out whether FIFA or its sprawling subsidiaries have also left traces in that web of donations financing Trump’s overpriced ballroom project in Washington.

That Infantino chose to flaunt his closeness to Trump that day was no coincidence. "I am very lucky," he said, "I have an excellent relationship with President Trump, whom I consider a close friend." One has to imagine it: the president of world football praising the man who tore up international agreements, cut aid, and threatened or insulted one nation after another as a paragon of integrity and truth. Infantino admires Trump’s "energy." He says Trump "does what he says," "says what he thinks," and "says what many think but don’t dare to say." It is the sound of self-justification, the music of a world that confuses power with authenticity. FIFA has turned it into a doctrine - a political conspiracy disguised as a festival of sport.

Because this prize is not a symbol of peace. It is a corrupt instrument. A golden handshake between an organization that long ago lost its moral authority and a president who has turned war, lies, and division into a system of rule. FIFA wants to cover the filth of power with the lost sheen of sport. It wants a billion people to watch as peace is sold as spectacle - and Trump perhaps applauds himself.

For decades, this organization has learned to bathe cynicism in floodlights. From Qatar to Moscow, from Doha to Riyadh, it has served every regime that paid and smiled for the cameras. Now comes the crowning act: a "Peace Prize" that elevates hypocrisy to principle. While wars escalate, democracies crumble, and the victims of FIFA’s construction sites lie in anonymous graves, Infantino dreams of a televised image that will make it all disappear.

But there are things that must not be forgotten. Not the workers who died in Qatar. Not the voices that were silenced. Not the officials who celebrate the "spirit of the game" in luxury suites while posing with autocrats. When FIFA now invokes peace, it is not a gesture - it is a provocation. The family of Jamsed Saphi has not received a cent to this day. Their son died in the heat of Qatar, 26 years old, healthy, drowning in debt for a job that cost him his life. Saphi left Nepal in July 2019 to work on a construction site in Qatar. He took out a loan of 1,800 US dollars to pay the recruitment fees and earned about 330 dollars a month. On June 20, 2022, in temperatures of around 113 degrees Fahrenheit, he collapsed - officially from "acute heart failure due to natural causes." A formula that in Doha means everything and nothing. It appears on hundreds, perhaps thousands of death certificates that prevent a worker’s death from being recognized for what it is: the consequence of overheating, exhaustion, and years of exploitation.

The Qatari death certificate of Jamsed Saphi lists "acute heart failure due to natural causes" as the cause of death - a standard formula that omits heat, exhaustion, and working conditions. With this classification, such deaths are not considered work-related, and families like his receive no compensation to this day.

Official Qatari data speak of around 400 to 500 deaths among foreign workers connected to World Cup projects. But independent investigations suggest that the number is much higher - realistically between 1,000 and 1,500. A medical study indicates that among young migrant workers in Qatar’s construction sector, the death rate from cardiovascular diseases during the hot months rose by up to 58 percent above the global average. These are not coincidences but systemic risks - never truly investigated, never officially acknowledged, never compensated.

FIFA knows these numbers. It knows the reports, the photos, the names. It knows that workers were forced to hand over their passports, went months without pay, and lived in containers while building the stadiums where the world would cheer. But Gianni Infantino prefers to talk about "social progress" and "reforms of the Kafala system." Prosperity through football, change through tournaments - that is his formula. In truth, it means profit through exploitation.

While FIFA rakes in billions and clears itself of responsibility with glossy statements, mothers in Nepal sit before unpaid bills, waiting for compensation that never comes. Human rights organizations demanded a fund of 440 million dollars - the same amount awarded in prize money for the tournament. But FIFA refused. The official reason: Qatar has "its own mechanisms." In reality, it is an apparatus of concealment that archives every death as if it had never happened - cold, calculated, perfectly organized in the service of impunity. And when the criticism grew louder, Infantino stood before the cameras and said, "Today I feel Qatari, I feel Arab, I feel African, I feel homosexual, I feel disabled." It was meant as a gesture of openness - and yet it revealed everything FIFA has long lost: shame, measure, and humanity. FIFA will never admit that it is built on blood. But every death certificate like that of Jamsed Saphi is a piece of evidence. A document of guilt - neatly stamped, certified, and filed away.

Everyone who walks into a football stadium should ask themselves whether their ticket money wouldn’t be better spent in the hands of the families of the dead. They would gain more from it - and maybe some seats would stay empty, but humanity would finally be back on the field.

You cannot reform this prize; you can only boycott it. You can only turn your back on this spectacle if you want to keep football from being surrendered completely to the cynics. The sport that once united people has become the tool of those who live off division and abuse of power. Many footballers have long lost touch with reality and with their fans. On December 5 in Washington, FIFA will stage peace - with cameras, confetti, and perhaps Donald Trump on stage. It will be the most expensive and one of the most repulsive advertising spectacles in world history, financed by the dreams of those who still believe in football. And it will be the moment when one understands that this organization no longer organizes games - but the world, shaped as the powerful prefer it.

Those who truly seek peace should turn off their television that day.