FIFA President Gianni Infantino earns Global Citizen Award

 

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has received a Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council in New York City, alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and Argentina President Javier Milei.

At the awards ceremony – held by the Atlantic Council which describes itself as a “nonpartisan organisation that galvanises U.S. global leadership and engagement in partnership with allies and partners,” – Infantino was introduced by seven-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady.

The FIFA chief then addressed the audience, which included US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and took the opportunity to not just promote the 48-team World Cup next year in the US, Mexico and Canada but also to call for world peace.

Infantino said: “I’m a simple football person. In this room tonight, we have many more leaders in politics and the economy. Many world leaders are here, many leaders in business. That’s why my plea and the plea coming from everyone who loves football all over the world is actually very simple.

“We all know that we live sadly in a divided world, in an aggressive world, in a complicated world. Like all of you, I suffer when I see children suffer. I cry when I see mothers crying.

Whether it’s in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan, in Libya, anywhere in the world, there are 80 countries where there are conflicts. We all suffer when we see what is happening. But like many of you as well, I believe that human beings are fundamentally good and not fundamentally bad. And we have to believe in us and dear leaders, we believe in you.

“We need peace in the world. How can we get it? Well, if I knew it, I would have done it long time ago, I don’t know. But the secret, probably like for anything else in life, is to believe in it and to work for it.

“So let’s just work more. Let’s bring people together more. Let’s just create occasions for people to get to meet each other and know each other a little bit more. We want you to succeed. We want the world to succeed. We want to unite the world and we want peace.”

It’s not the first time that Infantino has expressed his sadness at the global state of things. In 2024, at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Congress in Bangkok, he highlighted the pain of mothers in Gaza before swiftly arguing that there was a need for more football and more competitions to unite the world.

Infantino has frequently been a polarising figure. His executive presidency has been marked by a dismantling of FIFA’s internal checks and balances, uncontested re-elections and a lack of transparency over major decisions, including the awarding of the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia. During his reign, Infantino and FIFA have faced major criticism over human rights concerns in both Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The FIFA President has longstanding relationships with some of the world’s foremost autocrats, including Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame. His close ties with US President Donald Trump have also prompted criticism.