‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’: White House fires back after soccer federations demand FIFA scrap the Peace Prize it handed Donald Trump

The White House has hit back at critics of Donald Trump being awarded the FIFA Peace Prize, saying there is no one more deserving than the U.S. president. The backlash came after Australian soccer player Jackson Irvine and Norway’s Football Association (NFF) voiced their condemnation of the decision. NFF President Lise Klaveness went further, calling for the prize to be abolished entirely.

The controversy started when FIFA awarded Trump the inaugural Peace Prize at the World Cup draw in December for “promoting peace and unity around the world.” Human rights groups and activists quickly condemned the decision, saying it made a mockery of FIFA’s Human Rights Policy.

According to Al Jazeera, Irvine was among those who spoke out. “As an organisation, you would have to say decisions like the one that we saw awarding this peace prize make a mockery of what they’re trying to do with the human rights charter and trying to use football as a global driving force for good and positive change in the world,” he said.

The White House’s strong defense of Trump is unlikely to settle the growing debate around FIFA’s decision

White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended the award in a statement. “There is no one else in the world more deserving of FIFA’s first ever Peace Prize than President Trump. Anyone who thinks otherwise clearly suffers from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” he said, according to HuffPost. 

Ingle also praised Trump’s “Peace through Strength foreign policy,” claiming it had ended eight wars in less than a year. Critics, however, have pushed back on this claim, and Trump has previously faced tough questions about his war-ending assertions, pointing to the U.S.’s recent military strike on Venezuela and joint airstrikes with Israel on Iran as evidence of ongoing conflict.

NFF President Klaveness argued that awarding such prizes should be left to the Nobel Institute in Oslo, citing concerns over football being dragged into politics. “FIFA should avoid situations where this arm’s-length distance to state leaders is challenged, and these prizes will typically be very political if you don’t have really good instruments and experience to make them independent, with juries and criteria, et cetera,” she said.

The NFF also announced it would be writing a letter to FairSquare, a nonprofit organization that has alleged FIFA may have breached its own ethical guidelines on political impartiality by awarding the prize. Klaveness said the NFF board would support calls for a full investigation. “There should be checks and balances on these issues, and this complaint from FairSquare should be treated with a transparent timeline, and the reasoning and the conclusion should be transparent,” she said.

Human rights groups have also criticized the decision, arguing that the U.S. has failed to address risks of human rights abuses for athletes, fans, and workers. The U.S. is set to co-host this year’s World Cup with Canada and Mexico, running from June 11 to July 19. The tournament has already stirred political tensions, with a top Trump envoy pushing to remove Iran from World Cup 2026 despite FIFA having already confirmed the country’s participation.