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Football officials and players question FIFA\u2019s decision to award its inaugural Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 28 Apr 2026<\/span>28 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With six weeks to go until the World Cup, FIFA has drawn criticism for politicising football and undermining the sport\u2019s credibility as a force for good.<\/p>\n Norwegian Football Association (NFF) President Lise Klaveness has called on FIFA to scrap its peace prize to avoid getting drawn into politics, suggesting that the awarding of such prizes be left to the Nobel Institute in Oslo.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Led by Gianni Infantino, the sport\u2019s global governing body came under fire for awarding its inaugural peace prize to United States President Donald Trump at the World Cup draw in December.<\/p>\n The FIFA peace award was seen by many as a consolation prize for Trump, who has said on numerous occasions that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and whose country will co-host this year\u2019s World Cup with Canada and Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cWe [the NFF] want to see it [the FIFA peace prize] abolished. We don\u2019t think it\u2019s part of FIFA\u2019s mandate to give such a prize; we think we have a Nobel Institute that does that job independently already,\u201d Klaveness told an online news briefing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe think it\u2019s important for football federations, confederations and also FIFA to try to avoid situations where this arm\u2019s-length distance to state leaders is challenged, and these prizes will typically be very political if you don\u2019t have really good instruments and experience to make them independent, with juries and criteria, et cetera.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is full-time work; it\u2019s so sensitive. I think from a resource angle, from a mandate angle, but most importantly from a governance angle, I think it should be avoided also in the future,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The 45-year-old lawyer said the NFF board would be writing a letter saying it supported calls for an investigation into the awarding of the prize by nonprofit organisation FairSquare, which has alleged that Infantino and FIFA may have breached their own ethical guidelines regarding political impartiality in awarding the prize.<\/p>\n \u201cThere should be checks and balances on these issues, and this complaint from FairSquare should be treated with a transparent timeline, and the reasoning and the conclusion should be transparent,\u201d Klaveness said.<\/p>\n FIFA did not respond to Al Jazeera\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Australian footballer Jackson Irvine said football\u2019s credibility as a force for good has been undermined by FIFA, accusing it of making a mockery of its own Human Rights Policy.<\/p>\n Irvine also took aim at FIFA\u2019s decision to give the Peace Prize to US President Trump.<\/p>\n The US launched a military strike on Venezuela a month after the draw and began joint air attacks with Israel on Iran on February 28.<\/p>\n \u201cAs an organisation, you would have to say decisions like the one that we saw awarding this peace prize make a mockery of what they\u2019re trying to do with the human rights charter and trying to use football as a global driving force for good and positive change in the world,\u201d Irvine told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n \u201cDecisions like that feel like they just set us back in the perceived market of what football currently is, especially at the top level, where it\u2019s becoming so disconnected from society and the grassroots of what the game actually is and means in our communities and in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n FIFA published its first Human Rights Policy in 2017. Its Human Rights Framework for the 2026 World Cup includes provisions for host cities to promote inclusion, protect freedom of expression and prohibit discrimination during the June 11 to July 19 tournament.<\/p>\n However, rights groups have said FIFA needs to do more to press the US to address the risks of human rights abuses for athletes, fans and workers, pointing to a hardline immigration crackdown and deportation drive pursued by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Football officials and players question FIFA\u2019s decision to award its inaugural Peace Prize to US President Donald Trump. Published On 28 Apr 202628 Apr 2026 With six weeks to go until the World Cup, FIFA has drawn criticism for politicising football and undermining the sport\u2019s credibility as a force for good. Norwegian Football Association (NFF) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Mockery of human rights charter\u2019<\/h2>\n
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