In the early hours of May 27, 2015, at the request of the US Department of Justice, Swiss police raided a five-star hotel in Zurich, arresting seven high-ranking FIFA officials, including its vice presidents. The operation was pure drama; the swift, ruthless efficiency of the “world’s policeman” sent shockwaves through the globe. The geopolitical tremor caused by that arrest was no less intense than the US military airborne operation to capture Maduro in Venezuela a decade later.
Eleven years have flown by, and with the US-Canada-Mexico World Cup currently in full swing, what exactly has FIFA turned into? A single phone call from Donald Trump has punctured the hypocritical facade of this international organization—revealing that it might not be all that different from the corrupt behemoth of a decade ago. Actually, it is quite a money-saver nowadays. After all, they used to need astronomical bribes to buy off top officials; now, it just takes a quick phone call.
A Fake Peace Prize and the Real Peace of Football
The cozy relationship between current FIFA President Gianni Infantino and Donald Trump didn’t just start when the World Cup kicked off. Infantino has repeatedly altered his schedule—even showing up late to meetings—just to accommodate Trump. To curry favor with the United States (one of the host nations) and the most powerful man on Earth, the most powerful institution in football and its president unprecedentedly cooked up an award called the “FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World.”
Infantino personally handed the prize to Trump. At the climax of the ceremony, Trump’s absolute favorite track, “YMCA,” blasted through the speakers, and the 238-pound heavyweight excitedly busted out his signature dance moves. While they were thoroughly basking in their own glory, most of the world was cringing hard.
The football world has indeed seen plenty of stars who genuinely contributed to global peace. If football ever needed a peace prize, these players are the ones who actually deserved it. The most celebrated example is former Chelsea icon Didier Drogba—the very man immortalized in the pop song Children Love the World.
Born in 1978 in the former French colony of Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire), Drogba moved to France at the age of five. Yet, after making a name for himself, he chose to represent his nation of birth, leading a country long torn apart by civil war into the World Cup finals. Before the 2006 World Cup, he pleaded with both government forces and rebels to declare a ceasefire. Tragically, this gridiron warrior, who once used his massive influence to broker peace, couldn’t ultimately escape being stiffed on his wages by a Chinese football club. But of course, that’s a story for another time.
In one gruesome version of football’s origins, the original “ball” was the severed head of an enemy on the battlefield.
However, modern football has indeed helped foster world peace on many occasions. Under the sheer magic of the game, people would much rather watch their favorite stars snap an opponent’s leg on the pitch, or get into a massive brawl with rival fans at a pub, than face each other on an actual battlefield.
The FIFA Corruption Scandal and the Cat Room in Trump Tower
Trump’s corruption is common knowledge to just about everyone on Earth—minus Trump loyalists and the MAGA crowd. Less than two years into his second presidency, his family’s wealth has ballooned by billions. In interviews, Trump shamelessly boasts that his kids even get the “inside scoop” just to buy a truck. We know this man has zero boundaries when chasing dollars, and we know he loves having everything under his thumb. Yet, many of us probably still didn’t expect him to stretch his liver-spotted hands all the way into FIFA and the World Cup, all for an American player suspended over a red card.
Trump is a whistleblower of a different kind: he creates the shadowy deals, but because he loves to show off, he ends up exposing them himself—essentially whistleblowing on his own rackets. He is also a rule-shattering “whistleblower”: while the referee blows the whistle on the field, he makes a phone call to call the game from the sidelines, completely overturning the ref’s call.
When Trump blows the whistle, FIFA drops to its knees.
His entanglement with FIFA’s corruption actually dates back a decade. Former FIFA General Secretary Chuck Blazer used his power to amass a fortune, renting two luxury suites in New York’s Trump Tower—one of which was used solely to house his cats. Yet, while living the high life, he failed to file personal income tax returns for years, which caught the eye of the IRS. In 2011, a joint IRS and FBI operation nabbed Blazer on the street. Blazer pled guilty and secretly turned FBI informant, later covertly recording conversations with other FIFA elites, which paved the way for the massive 2015 raids.
His crimes, of course, had no direct relationship with living in Trump Tower, nor even much of an indirect one. However, why a man like him chose to reside in Trump Tower—especially when viewed alongside Trump’s own history of tax evasion—is certainly something worth pondering.
Trump’s Art of the Deal and the Dismissed Charges
Also tangled in the web of FIFA corruption was Hernán López, a former FOX executive arrested in 2020. He was suspected of funneling millions in bribes to soccer officials at all levels to crush rivals and secure exclusive US broadcasting rights for major South American tournaments and the World Cup. After a grueling trial and appeal process, López was found guilty by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 2025. But Trump, newly returned to the White House, intervened.
In December 2025, the US Department of Justice voluntarily moved to dismiss the criminal prosecution against López and others, a motion officially approved by the US Supreme Court—a move that could trigger a domino effect, unraveling convictions in related cases. It was during this exact window that Trump accepted his long-coveted “Peace Prize” from the current FIFA president. Even though that peace prize was custom-made just for him, it is worlds apart from the actual Nobel Peace Prize awarded by Norway.
The 2015 FIFA corruption bust was cheered by almost everyone worldwide, including UEFA and CONMEBOL, who were locked in a bitter feud with then-President Sepp Blatter. Russia was one of the very few exceptions, as it was suspected of being one of the bribers. Following Blatter’s disgraceful exit, a series of reforms did begin to reshape this beast:
The old “Executive Committee,” where a dozen-plus individuals controlled World Cup voting rights, was dismantled.
It was restructured into a 37-member “FIFA Council” with mandatory spots for female members.
Host selection for the World Cup was handed over to all member associations, decided at the FIFA Congress through a “one country, one vote, with open ballots” system.
FIFA’s Retrograde Slide and the Dictators
Coincidentally, the first chairman of the reformed FIFA Independent Governance Committee was also named Maduro (Miguel Maduro). He was ousted the following year after refusing to approve high-ranking Russian officials for the FIFA Council. He has since publicly criticized FIFA for over-concentrating power in the hands of a single man, Gianni Infantino, turning it into a closed political interest group.
Maduro isn’t the only one who noticed. Many journalists and scholars have Alarmed by the signs of an authoritarian resurgence and reform regression within FIFA, as if the organization is quietly tuning in to the global trend of slipping backward into autocracy.
Seeing Trump’s blatant interference on the football field, I can’t help but offer a word of praise for President Xi. He is the ultimate poster child for political backtracking in this era, yet no matter how hard he plays his power games, he has never called FIFA to demand perks for the Chinese team. His love for football is world-renowned, a far cry from a fair-weather fan like Trump. At least on the pitch, the actions of these two men redefine the difference between the “Chinese Dream” and the “American Dream.”
Football is an 11-v-11 game. While a single superstar can often decide a match, Trump’s demand for FIFA to give one of Team USA’s stars a pass completely invalidates the hard work of his teammates. From this moment on, any victory this US team achieves at the World Cup will be tainted.
As players score spectacular goals on the pitch and fans worldwide cheer and weep for their beloved teams, so much filth remains buried just beneath the green grass.
