Astead Herndon

So, you know, he has gone above and beyond before for host nations.

But I think what we're seeing now with Trump, I mean, certainly with the Peace Prize, is kind of another level.

So at the FIFA World Cup draw at the start of December, Donald Trump was presented with the inaugural FIFA Peace Prize.

FIFA has never had a Peace Prize.

Nobody has ever asked FIFA to do a Peace Prize as far as we know.

And the background of this is earlier in autumn 2025, a kind of unofficial campaign

kind of coming out of the White House and outriders of the White House, started to suggest that President Trump should be winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

And actually, the day before the Peace Prize was announced, of course, the day before, Infantino goes out on Instagram and actually says President Trump deserves it.

There's a few theories on this.

The first is just Infantino loves it, right?

He loves being around rich, powerful people, sees himself as this kind of head of society.

state for soccer, if you like, the king of soccer.

The second view is there is a pragmatic need for FIFA to go above and beyond, right?

And maybe they just think this is what we need to do to make sure we get what we need.

And there are things that FIFA need.

So the host cities, the 11 host cities in the States, have needed 625 million, I should say, worth of federal security funding for the tournament.

Now, in normal circumstances, you would say, this is an international global event.

Of course, the federal government's going to provide that.

But actually, you don't quite know if they're going to provide that, right?

So they got that.