Many would have thought that President of Fifa, Gianni Infantino was joking when, earlier in the week, he announced his new idea, the ‘Fifa Peace Prize – Football Unites the World.” It is a resoundingly stupid idea, considering that Fifa is the world governing body of football, which decides the rules of the game, picks the country in which the Fifa World Cup is held every four years (not in the most transparent or honest way) and most importantly, negotiates TV and marketing rights for the World Cup.

It is nothing more than an international ruling body for a sport that is qualified to choose the footballer of the year, re-interpret the offside rule and issue directives about how much time should be added at the end of the game. How Infantino has jumped to the conclusion that being in charge of football entitles him and Fifa to award a peace prize, nobody knows. Speaking at the American Business Forum in Miami on Wednesday, Infantino tried to explain the reasoning behind his new project.

“When we see what is happening in our world today. which is a very divided world, we need to find more occasions to bring people together, because when these people come together, they speak to each other, they understand each other. We believe that peace in the world is something which is so important,” he said. “We have to support it because it’s about unity and we have to support anyone who is doing something special. So, we thought we have to bring to life the Fifa Peace Prize.” This bizarre prize will be awarded for the first time in Washington DC on December 5, when draw for the 2026 World Cup will be held and there will be a global audience one billion watching.

“This is the right platform to award somebody who has done so much or is doing so much for peace because we need that,” said the Infantino, before praising US president Donal Trump, who must be a hot favourite for this ludicrous Fifa prize, which, we suspect, aims to compete with the Nobel peace award. Fifa has none of the gravitas, moral authority or integrity of the Norwegian Nobel Committee engage in prize giving unrelated to football.

It has a vast wealth and runs the most popular game in the world, hence the one billion audience, but it is not the most reputable organisation. In 2015, a total of 18 individuals including nine Fifa officials were indicted for fraud, money laundering and racketeering. The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar raised many suspicions, while Fifa, which is supposedly interested in bringing people together, turned a blind eye to the hundreds of third world workers who died building Qatar’s stadium in inhuman conditions.

Infantino should stick to football and cleaning up his own organisation instead of thinking he can bestow peace awards because Fifa is a very wealthy organisation.