The World Cup draw on Friday at the Kennedy Center in Washington was as much about President Donald Trump as it was about soccer.
At noon, Andrea Bocelli sang Puccini’s “Nessun dorma,” a Trump rally staple. The Village People closed the event by performing “YMCA,” another Trump rally regular. FIFA President Gianni Infantino implored the crowd of soccer and sports luminaries to applaud Trump, who watched the proceedings from a box overlooking the stage.
Soccer’s international governing body created a FIFA Peace Prize and awarded it to the self-anointed peacemaker-in-chief (including a gold medal the president promptly hung around his neck). The announcement included a four-minute montage lionizing Trump. “This has been a presidency marked by actions to pursue peace around the world,” the narration intoned, omitting mention of the administration’s controversial boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific.
FIFA’s two-hour World Cup draw was held to reveal which countries will play each other at stadiums across the U.S., Canada and Mexico in the opening stage of next year’s tournament. But with the familiar playlist, the gold trophies and the fawning praise, the event effectively became a star-studded Trump rally, though the dress code was more black tie than red hat.
The takeover of the grand white-marble performing arts center in our nation’s capital — where Trump revamped the previously bipartisan board of trustees earlier this year — is the latest example of FIFA debasing itself to cater to the presidentInfantino joined Trump on a trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar in May — leading to his own hours-late arrival at a FIFA congress in Paraguay (where several European delegates walked out in response). He also traveled with Trump to Egypt in October. Infantino has visited not only the Oval Office but also Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
Source: MS NOW
