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A perfectly friendly-looking American guy, sharp suit, early 50s is wandering around Miami. He tells me that in the last 10 years the city has turned into a “magnet for dreamers, doers and visionaries, a launchpad where ideas take flight, where connections spark movements, where legacies are born”.
I nod sagely, pretending to know what that means before clicking the X in the top right of the YouTube tab. The man in question is in fact the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, encouraging me and other leaders of industry to pay lots of money to attend the America Business Forum. The website tells me “America Business Forum comes to the United States for the first time” – which begs the question where they’ve held it previously. I’m no CEO, I don’t keep a diary, but I’d have put America right up there as locations to hold a forum on American business.
If you’re one of the first people to read this, well you could just about get a ticket, otherwise it’s too late – missed the chance to see the guy who set up WeWork tell us the wifi password, or see Rafa Nadal tell me how to grow my self-improvement podcast. The $10,000 early bird Diamond package “for those who lead change and want to be at the center of everything” was already sold out anyway. It’s tiring enough being the centre of my own existence, let alone everything.
What in the Micky van de Ven does this have to do with sport anyway? Well this was where the president of Fifa, Gianni Infantino, announced his new big idea this week: the “Fifa Peace Prize — Football Unites the World”.
Gianni is on stage alongside one of the hosts; we are treated to a stirring montage of the last World Cup. “Qatar 2022: the most questioned World Cup in history,” begins the voiceover. “A tournament surrounded by doubt. debate. And the weight of the world’s eyes, but when the whistle blew something changed. The noise turned into emotion, the controversy into connection. Under pressure, Gianni Infantino stood at the centre leading with resolve – proving that leadership isn’t about avoiding the storm, it’s about standing tall within it and as the world watched. The same World Cup became the most emotional, the most unifying, the most human of them all.”
The room breaks out into healthy applause. That is certainly one review of Qatar 2022. Others might want to add a little more nuance.
Anyway on to the Fifa “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The Nobel Peace Prize” Peace Prize.
“Our motto in Fifa is that football or soccer unites and that it brings people together from the entire planet,” Infantino said. “When we see what is happening in our world today. which is a very divided world, we need to find more occasions to bring people together, because when these people come together, they speak to each other, they understand each other. We believe that peace in the world is something which is so important.
“We have to support it because it’s about unity and we have to support anyone who is doing something special. So we thought we have to bring to life the Fifa Peace Prize. The first edition will be happening this year with the awarding on the 5th of December in Washington DC on the occasion of the draw for the World Cup, because we will have a global audience with 1 billion people watching the draw. This is the right platform to award somebody who has done so much or is doing so much for peace, because we need that. Football helps a little bit, but then we need leaders who push it into the goal.”
Well now, does anyone know anyone who might in the market for a global peace prize? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone? Can I shock you? I like peace.
Infantino went on to praise Donald Trump: “As far as I understand, president Trump was elected, in the USA, quite clearly elected, and when you are in such a great democracy as the United States you should first of all respect the results of the election,” says the man who – checks notes – has stood unopposed in Fifa elections twice, about the man – checks other notes – whose supporters mounted an insurrection against the results of an election. Where do you even start? The auditorium applauds again.
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“I think we should all support what he’s doing because I think he’s doing pretty good” … Pretty pretty good – roll the Curb credits.
It would be a great time to ask Gianni whether it’s normal that he didn’t face any candidate in the past two Fifa presidential elections. And while we’re on peace, has he given back his order of friendship medal from Vladimir Putin? And while we’re on Qatar, why has Fifa ignored its own recommendations and ruled out paying compensation to migrant workers who were harmed in Qatar? There are other questions.
But it’s more extraordinary how any of this is happening. For good or bad, why is the guy who runs football preaching about fair elections and doling out peace prizes?
Sometimes it is difficult to reconcile this game of perfect simplicity with its place in the world. In the past week it has delivered some moments of total beauty. Van de Ven powering past the whole of FC Copenhagen, Dan Burn turning his forehead into the outside of Roberto Carlos’s left foot, Hakan Calhanoglu lacing it to Piotr Zielinski have prompted all manner of involuntary noises from this sofa. Without their brilliance, does football have this money, this influence? They shouldn’t be connected.
How do we get from Neil Harris praising the lads for beating Brighton Under-21s in the Vertu Trophy to the Fifa president taking part in the Gaza peace talks in Egypt? What a weird ecosystem. Something as inconsequential as football probably shouldn’t have this level of importance – unless of course it brings about world peace. When that happens consider my movements sparked, my dreams magnetised and sign me up for all the business forums you can.
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