‘THIS-ISM … THAT-ISM …’
When María Corina Machado won this year’s Nobel peace prize for her “tireless work promoting democratic rights”, Donald Trump took the news as Maga-nanimously as you might expect. Having tirelessly run a campaign of self-promotion to ensure he won it himself, the president of the USA USA USA immediately claimed the credit for the Venezuelan opposition leader’s triumph, listed his own self-proclaimed and often dubious achievements in the field of global peacemaking and attacked the credibility of the committee who made the decision not to award the medal, cash prize and diploma to him. While security concerns mean it remains to be seen if the newly crowned Nobel laureate will emerge from hiding to pick up her accolade in person at the Oslo ceremony in December, a certain obsequious Fifa president appears hell-bent on stealing her thunder anyway. Yup, Gianni Infantino has decided to award a peace prize of his own creation in front of a global TV audience of hundreds of millions of international football fans the previous week in Washington.
A man who has for years preached the importance of keeping politics out of football, particularly when they’re the kind of politics he finds awkward or simply doesn’t like, Infantino used his platform at the America Business Forum in Miami to bang his drum about the ability of football to unite people of every colour and creed, particularly those who have a spare $5,000-plus knocking around to buy dynamically priced Geopolitics World Cup tickets. “In an increasingly unsettled and divided world, it’s fundamental to recognise the outstanding contribution of those who work hard to end conflicts and bring people together in a spirit of peace,” he parped. “Football stands for peace and on behalf of the entire football community, the Fifa Peace Prize – Football Unites The World will recognise the enormous efforts of those individuals who unite people, bringing hope for future generations.”
But who could he mean? While Infantino was careful not to give any clues regarding the identity of the inaugural award’s lucky recipient, he did segue into an almost certainly unrelated and sycophantic homage to his current Best Friend Forever (Or At Least Until August Next Year), Trump. His words certainly had the desired effect. Around the world, the most cynical among us were united in declaring they knew exactly who would be winning the Pretend Peace Prize, with some even going so far as to make entirely baseless claims that the convicted felon and cheating-at-golf man-baby in question might even have forced Infantino to invent it just to make up for the president’s sense of grievance at missing out on the real thing. As plausible a scenario as it sounds, Football Daily begs to differ, if only because in recent months the increasingly preposterous Fifa boss has burrowed his way so far up Trump’s digestive tract that there’s every chance this new wheeze was actually his own idea.
And while we can probably assume it is beyond Infantino’s limited wit to throw the mother of all curveballs by handing Fifa’s first (and possibly last) ever PPP to Greta Thunberg, Volodymyr Zelenskyy or that member of Atalanta’s coaching staff who got between Ademola Lookman and Ivan Juric to prevent an unedifying Bigger Cup touchline flare-up, we can at least hope Reece James and his Chelsea teammates are invited along to Washington in full kit to conduct a revenge-hijack of Trump’s presentation ceremony. That golden unflushable-turd-on-a-plinth, or whatever other similarly tasteful bauble Infantino decides to give the American president for his services to global peace and unity, would more than make up for the winner’s medal he famously palmed and pocketed during the Club World Cup final presentation ceremony.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Someone who worked a lot with rock stars told me that the age that they become famous is the age they stay for the rest of their life. I thought: ‘That doesn’t bode well for me.’ I was in the public eye at 16 and thrust in front of the media. You grow up, you become a dad, but you’re still a footballer. And then, all of a sudden, it stops but your whole identity is still wrapped up in it” – Joe Cole is on good form in this cracking interview with Donald McRae.
Rio Ferdinand’s weird logic sums up the attitude of the mega-rich towards paying their fair share of tax (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition). If the NHS is suffering from a shortage of investment, how does Ferdinand naffing off to Dubai to avoid paying British taxes, and thus contributing to things like the welfare state, help matters?” – Stewart McGuinness.
Jason Wilcox is doing Manchester United a disservice by spurning the opportunity to ‘put the Harlem Globetrotters together’ (yesterday’s Football Daily, full email edition). Among their honorary members, the Globetrotters count Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Neymar, Paul Pogba, Leo Messi, and Central Coast Mariners scoring phenom Usain Bolt. Granted, things look a little sketchier at the back, so they might not challenge Europe’s finest. But with Gal Gadot and Kevin Hart on the bench, they’d be confident of knocking Grimsby off their perch” – Rowan Sweeney.
Heck of a week for Micky van de Ven. Terrible headlines for ghosting his manager. Tail-between-legs apology. Then a worldie in Bigger Cup. What’s he got planned for the weekend? A red card for decapitating an opponent? Buying pies for the crowd? Perform a goofy half-time show? Can’t wait to see” – Mike Wilner.
A doff of the cap to the great Barney Ronay for his wonderful review of Gareth Southgate’s new book on leadership. It’s second only to the greatest football book review of all time, which is worth reading at least once a year, the great Taylor Parkes in When Saturday Comes” – Noble Francis.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Rowan Sweeney. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.
