US President Donald Trump said he was not attending the draw for the 2026 World Cup to receive a prize, but he got one anyway. Amid TV cameras and flashbulbs from the international press, Trump dominated the scene at Washington’s Kennedy Center on Friday, placing himself squarely at the center of one of the biggest events in the sporting world. The US, along with Canada and Mexico, will host the soccer tournament next year.
The prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, were there, too, but it was all Trump’s show. “This will be unique, this will be stellar, this will be spectacular,” Gianni Infantino, the gregarious president of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, said at the opening of the ceremony, talking about next year’s games. But he could have been talking about the Kennedy Center event itself, which was located in Washington at Trump’s urging.
Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli sangNessun Dorma, a favoUrite of Trump’s and a staple at his campaign rallies, to launch the proceedings. “Nobody ever thought a thing like this could happen,” Trump said before proceedings got under way, omitting the fact that the US hosted the World Cup in 1994. Last month, FIFA announced that a new annual award called the FIFA Peace Prize would be presented at the draw to “reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace”.
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A video before the presentation celebrated Trump for resolving the war in Gaza and trying to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The trophy, a gold-plated globe carried by upraised hands, was considerably larger than the Nobel, which is just a simple medal. Trump called the award “an awfully nice tribute to you and the game of football, or as we call it, soccer”.
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