Red Card: An excerpt from Jules Boykoff's new book on the 2026 FIFA World Cup
In an excerpt from his new book, Jules Boykoff argues that FIFA President Gianni Infantino is "Trump’s principal accomplice when it comes to sportswashing."
Welcome to Sports Politika, a media venture founded by investigative journalist and researcher Karim Zidan that strives to help you understand how sports and politics shape the world around us. My mission is to offer an independent platform for accessible journalism that raises awareness and empowers understanding.
If you share this vision, please consider supporting my work by joining becoming a paid subscriber. We are currently offering 60% off annual subscriptions to celebrate Sports Politika’s third anniversary. Don’t miss out!
Dear readers,
I am delighted to share an exclusive excerpt from Jules Boykoff’s new book, Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine. Boykoff is a man of many hats: a professor of political science at Pacific University; a former professional and Olympic soccer player; and the author of countless books on the intersection of sports and politics. He is one of the foremost thinkers operating in this space and is someone I respect tremendously and am proud to call my friend. It is an honour to feature his writing on Sports Politika and I hope you consider buying his new book here. You will not regret it.
-Karim
Soccer is never just soccer. And sports are politics by other means.
This was abundantly clear when the powerbrokers of world football convened in December 2025 for the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw. Glitz and glam were in abundance. Supermodel Heidi Klum emceed the event alongside actor Kevin Hart. The audience included a Who’s Who of North American sports icons: NBA great Shaquille O’Neal, hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky, NFL Super Bowl champions Tom Brady, and New England Patriots owner—and Epstein files staple—Robert Kraft. The event featured the heads of state from all three host countries: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and US President Donald Trump. To close the show, the Village People played its MAGA anthem “YMCA,” a brazen sop to Trump. The point of the event—sorting the 48 countries into twelve groups to compete in the World Cup—was relegated to a mere sideshow, lost amid the star-studded bromide-o-rama.
The event took place in Washington, DC, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, renamed later that month “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” before being shut down when numerous artists refused to perform there. FIFA relocated the event from Las Vegas to make it as convenient as possible for Trump to attend. The switch was orchestrated by FIFA President Gianni Infantino, a man who had long made a tactical habit of sucking up to the powerful.
Infantino took his sycophancy to the next level at the 2026 World Cup draw, awarding Trump with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize, a wholly confected accolade with no precedent, let alone serious criteria. The award—technically titled “FIFA Peace Prize – Football Unites the World”—was concocted the previous month “to reward individuals who have taken exceptional and extraordinary actions for peace and by doing so have united people across the world.”[1] Infantino’s unilateral decision to establish the award blindsided his colleagues at the FIFA Council, composed of eight vice-presidents, 28 members at large, and chaired by Infantino himself. Some FIFA Council members first heard about the prize by reading a press release. When Human Rights Watch wrote to FIFA to request basic information about the prize—its search criteria, the nomination process, the judges for the award—the group was unceremoniously stonewalled.
The design of the trophy itself was downright bizarre: a gaudy assemblage of thin, grizzled hands that looked as if they were surfacing from the bowels of hell, stretching toward a golden orb hovering above. Infantino, who vocally supported Trump’s failed bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize, which instead went to Venezuela’s right-wing opposition leader María Corina Machado, took to the stage to explain why he chose Trump for the award: “This is what we want from a leader, a leader that cares about the people. We want to live in a safe world, in a safe environment. We want to unite. That’s what we do here today. That’s what we do at the World Cup, Mr. President, and you definitely deserve the first FIFA Peace Prize for your action, for what you have obtained in your way, but you obtained it in an incredible way.” Infantino went on to gush, “You can always count, Mr. President, on my support, on the support of the entire football community, or soccer community, to help you make peace and make the world prosper all over the world.”[2]
Because Trump is a megalomaniac with a crude, transactional governing style and zero commitment to truth, he is well-situated to leverage the toxic gangsterism of sports. “The truth is that sport, in its current hyper-politicized and hyper-commodified form, is exquisitely suited to Trump’s needs,” wrote Bryan Armen Graham in the Guardian. “It supplies the crowds, the cameras, the ritual patriotism and the ready-made mythologies of strength and struggle. It gives him stadiums and arenas that can be turned into instant rallies and backstage corridors that double as donor gatherings.” In addition, Graham notes, “It offers him a role he prefers to the one described in the constitution: not head of the executive branch, but ringmaster-in-chief.”[3]
Infantino has been Trump’s primary enabler when it comes to converting soccer into political advantage. He has visited the White House and Mar-a-Lago more than any world leader, so many times that Trump might start charging him rent. In fact, after Infantino established a New York headquarters in Trump Towers, he actually is paying rent to Trump.[4] Gianni Infantino is Trump’s principal accomplice when it comes to sportswashing.
With Infantino and Trump staining the 2026 World Cup, there is much to fight against. But football is the people’s game, and as the tournament approaches, there is so much to fight for as well.
From Red Card: The 2026 World Cup, Sportswashing, and the FIFA Greed Machine by Jules Boykoff. Published by OR Books: https://orbooks.com/catalog/red-card/
[1] FIFA, “FIFA Introduces the FIFA Peace Prize – An Award to Recognise Exceptional Actions for Peace and Unity,” 5 November 2025, https://inside.fifa.com/organisation/media-releases/peace-prize-award-football-unites-the-world-infantino?requester=MediaHub
[2] Dave Zirin and Jules Boykoff, “FIFA Kisses Up to Trump With a ‘Peace Prize’,” The Nation, 5 December 2025, https://www.thenation.com/article/society/fifa-trump-infantino-peace-prize/
[3] Bryan Armen Graham, “Trump Loomed Over Sport Like Never Before in 2025. Next Year He Will Take Even More, Guardian, 24 December 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/dec/24/donald-trump-sports-world-cup-ufc-white-house
[4] Matt Slater, “FIFA Opens New York Office in U.S. President’s Trump Tower,” New York Times, 8 July 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6479639/2025/07/08/fifa-trump-tower-new-york-club-world-cup/
 | A guest post by
|