WASHINGTON (AP) — The Gaza Strip is in ruins with entire city neighborhoods reduced to rubble and serious questions about rebuilding basic water and sewage facilities, roads, electrical grids and the critical infrastructure needed to consistently produce enough food to prevent widespread starvation.
But a gleaming new national soccer stadium for an area devastated by two-plus years of war between Israel and Hamas? That’s covered — or so promises the sport’s international governing body.
The unusual pledge was part of a showy and often strange display of political theater at the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump ’s Board of Peace in Washington on Thursday, where nine governments pledged $7 billion toward a Gaza relief package and five others said they’d deploy troops as part of an international stabilization force.
“We don’t have to just rebuild houses or schools or hospitals or roads,” said FIFA President Gianni Infantino. “We also have to rebuild and build people, emotion, hope and trust. And this is what football, my sport, is about.”
FIFA pledged $50 million for a new stadium holding between 20,000 and 25,000 spectators, and said it would build a $15 million FIFA academy. The organization also promised to spend an additional $2.5 million for 50 “arena mini pitches,” or soccer fields, and five full-sized fields costing $1 million each.
Gaza doesn’t have a national soccer team. A unified Palestinian squad represents it and the West Bank and has been recognized by FIFA since 1998 — but has never qualified for the World Cup.
“Football, or soccer, as it is called here, is the world’s universal language,” Infantino said. “It’s about hope. It’s about joy. It’s about happiness. It’s about coming together. It’s about uniting the world.”
He showed a video that proclaimed, “A simple ball. A shared field. A reason to believe again,” while noting that FIFA and the Board of Peace were joining forces to “turn football into a bridge toward peace, dignity and hope.”
The video mentioned FIFA creating Gaza soccer leagues at youth, amateur and regional levels and promised a “complete football ecosystem designed to support communities and future generations.”
Infantino has become a regular presence at the White House ahead of this year’s World Cup, jointly hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada. He also frequently pops up at Trump events while the president is traveling. He showed up in Davos, Switzerland, last month when the Board of Peace — part of a larger White House-brokered ceasefire to end the fighting in Gaza — was formally launched.
Trump repeatedly singled out Infantino during his own remarks on Thursday at the Board of Peace event while attempting to gloss over the fact that many top U.S. allies — including Britain and Canada — haven’t joined.
“Virtually everyone is the head of a country,” Trump said of the board’s members, while noting that Infantino is “head of soccer, so that’s not so bad.”
“I like your job the best, I think,” Trump said.
Thursday’s attendees were given Make American Great Again-style red hats with “USA” in white letters and featuring “45-47” signifying Trump’s two presidential terms. Infantino briefly wore his, as did others assembled.
The president gave shout-outs to Infantino during several stories on divergent topics, including when Trump suggested that he’d personally been a more successful real estate developer than his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and as he recounted how an escalator stopped while the president was on it during last fall’s U.N. General Assembly meeting — an incident Trump suggested should trigger arrests, but didn’t.
Trump even explained to Infantino that B-2 bombers carry “very big bombs.”
But the president’s most effusive praise for Infantino was related to his organization having awarded Trump a new FIFA peace prize last year — after the president lobbied hard for a Nobel Peace Prize but was snubbed by the Norwegian committee that awards it.
“I think they saw that I got screwed by Norway,” Trump said.
