Chef José Andrés Slams ‘Divisive’ Trump Over FIFA Peace Prize Award: ‘Betrays The Beautiful Game’

(Photo by Dominika Zarzycka/NurPhoto via AP)

World Central Kitchen founder Chef José Andrés expressed his dismay that the International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) chose to honor President Donald Trump with a fabricated “peace prize.”

FIFA President Gianni Infantino presented Trump with the “inaugural 2025 FIFA Peace Prize” in Washington, D.C. on Friday before the FIFA draw of teams for the 2026 World Cup hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

WCK is a non-profit organization that provides hot meals to displaced people in crisis zones around the world. While serving Palestinians in 2024, WCK workers were caught up in Israeli airstrikes that killed seven aid workers in April 2024 and at least three in November.

Andrés posted to X on Saturday, “Football brings the world together—that’s why we love the World Cup.”

He continued, “How can FIFA give a ‘peace’ award to someone who does the opposite? Someone who divides with hate, trashes Somalis and Haitians and makes Latinos fear walking the street. That’s anti-football. And bombing boats in the Caribbean? This prize betrays the beautiful game.”

Andrés accused FIFA of “betraying their core fans that made FIFA possible.”

Trump made no secret of his desire for the Nobel Peace Prize that went to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado Parisca.

FIFA presented him with the consolation prize that Trump critics like MS NOW’s Jen Psaki called “a made-up peace prize from the notoriously corrupt soccer organization.”

CNN’s Ana Navaro quipped, “I find it a little comical. In a week where we’ve talked about possible war crimes, where we have seen Donald Trump pardon an actual drug kingpin – former president of Honduras – who flooded the United States with 400 tons of cocaine, I would say that the FIFA World Cup president, Gianni Infantino, sucking up to him is really low on my rung of outrageous.”