Gavin Newsom mocked the “peace prize” that FIFA gave President Donald Trump on Friday, saying it’s more like a participation trophy that means little.
Trump, while attending the group draw ceremony for next year’s World Cup at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., was awarded a golden medal, which he put on himself, as well as a trophy and certificate by FIFA President Gianni Infantino. Infantino, as he has in the past, showered Trump with praise.
Trump, 79, was declared deserving of the hastily-created inaugural prize for “his exceptional and extraordinary actions to promote peace and unity around the world,” claimed Infantino, 55, who encouraged the president to wear the medal “everywhere you want to go.”
Newsom’s press team, however, soon offered a reimagining of the medallion.
“If You Had Fun, You Won!” read the inscription on the 58-year-old governor’s rendering of Trump’s “participation” medal, which included a smiling gold star.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Newsom’s post.
Infantino rushed to invent the prize after Trump lobbied for—but lost out on—the Nobel Peace Prize in October, according to a report in The New York Times. In so doing, he apparently shocked senior leaders of soccer’s global governing body.
Infantino, who has been cozying up to the president, said on stage Friday that the prize “is presented annually on behalf of the billions of football-loving people from around the world to distinguish an individual who exemplifies an unwavering commitment to balancing peace and unity throughout the world through their notable leadership and action.”
After all that flattery, Trump later commented that the sport of American football needs a name change.
“When you look at what has happened to football in the United States, it’s again soccer in the United States. We seem to never call it that because we have a little bit of conflict with another thing called football,” Trump said.
“But when you think about it, shouldn’t it really be called, I mean, this is football, there’s no question about it. We have to come up with another name for that. It really doesn’t make sense when you think about it. This is really football.”
Friday’s group selections resulted in the U.S. being scheduled to play Australia, Paraguay and either Turkey, Romania, Slovakia or Kosovo next June.
