"Decisions like that feel like they just set us back" — Jackson Irvine isn't mincing words, and this time FIFA's awkward relationship with political power is squarely in his crosshairs.
The 33-year-old FC St. Pauli midfielder, who also serves as Co-President of Professional Footballers Australia and sits on FIFPRO's Global Player Council, has publicly labelled FIFA's Peace Prize "a mockery" — the award Gianni Infantino handed to Donald Trump at December's World Cup draw. For an organisation that wraps itself in human rights language, the optics of gifting the inaugural Peace Prize to a U.S. president who didn't receive the Nobel Prize he'd been campaigning for — one month after that Nobel snub, no less — are difficult to defend.
A prize FIFA's own council didn't vote on
The detail that stings most is this: FIFA's Council was never even consulted before Infantino announced the prize, according to The Athletic. That's not a governance quirk — it's Infantino operating as a one-man awards committee for his friend in the White House. Norway federation president Lise Klaveness has already called for the prize to be abolished outright, arguing FIFA simply doesn't have the mandate or the independent infrastructure to hand out political awards responsibly. She has a point.
Irvine framed it clearly: "As an organisation, you would have to say decisions like the one that we saw awarding this Peace Prize makes 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."
That tension matters beyond the symbolic. FIFA has spent years trying to reposition football as a vehicle for social progress. Every decision like this one chips away at that credibility — particularly for players who are expected to publicly back those values at tournaments.
LGBTQI+ concerns haven't gone away
Irvine also turned to a more immediate worry: the treatment of LGBTQI+ communities at a World Cup hosted in the United States. He did something similar ahead of Qatar 2022, when he and the Socceroos recorded a video challenging the host nation's stance on same-sex relationships and migrant worker conditions. He's bringing the same energy to North America.
"In America, we're seeing more and more the rights of these communities put into... these people and rights are being taken away all over the country," he told Reuters. "We have to sincerely hope that we see a lot of open support in that space as well."
It's a sharper critique than it might appear. The U.S. hosting a tournament sold globally on themes of inclusion while rolling back protections for queer communities domestically is a contradiction that doesn't resolve itself just because the stadiums are bigger. Activists and players will be watching how visible LGBTQI+ support is allowed to be on the ground.
Australia open Group D on June 13 against Türkiye at BC Place in Vancouver — a group that also includes the host United States and Paraguay. For the Socceroos' World Cup odds, their draw could be worse. For FIFA's reputation, it's getting harder to say the same.
