I spent a mad day in Washington DC, with the most complicated World Cup draw in the game’s history overshadowed for weirdness by everything that came before it. Did you hear that Donald Trump had brought peace to the world?
Here are my takeaways from an extraordinary afternoon at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in the snow…
1. I think we all had a vision of how that would go. We presumed that there would be moments of cringe, moments of emotion, moments of televised administration and moments when we frowned as someone told us that the official World Cup song would get stuck in our heads. These things are always mad, they’re always over-the-top and we always watch them while asking ourselves why we are watching them.
But can I just say: it managed to surpass all of those expectations by several miles. It was ludicrously self-congratulating and equally extra. Just a hunch: I think we might hear the phrase “biggest World Cup ever” quite a lot over the next six months.
2. Forget the World Cup draw, the biggest – literally – trophy on show was Donald Trump’s Peace Prize. A significant proportion of the entire show was committed to praising Trump, with both a promotional video (including shots of Gianni Infantino) and then again on stage.
The trophy is vast, gold and it came with a medal and a certificate, as if Trump has just completed a fun run. He then proceeded to talk up his own abilities and actions, Infantino’s leadership and the ticket sales at next summer’s World Cup. Every day it feels like we are walking further and further into the football dystopia.
Trump was presented with Fifa’s inaugural ‘Peace Prize’ – it’s very big (Photo: Getty)3. I know there is a tendency to laugh at all this; it clearly is so farcical that it becomes comedic. But there’s also an incredibly serious point to make. Fifa purports to be a non-political organisation. So for its president to stand on a stage with the US President, and tell him that he can always count upon his support and the support of the football community, is a scandal.
Fifa can claim that Infantino was only referring to the pursuit of peace, but it is an eminently political message given how Infantino has been present so often with Trump recently. It goes against the organisation’s statutes and it must be reined in.
4. We should worry about the human rights elements of this tournament, the new politicism of world football’s governing body, the extreme heat and the price of tickets. And I will too.
But my god, when the first notes of Nessun Dorma hit it is impossible not to get a lump in your throat and Andrea Bocelli nailed it to the power of infinity. That’s how they get you: playing music that grabs your heart and soul to distract you from the bad stuff.
Andrea Bocelli’s Nessun Dorma hit everyone in the feels (Photo: Getty)5. I know that there’s probably no other way around it – other than going back to 32 teams or increasing again to 64 and/or moving the qualifying play-off dates – but if the hosts of the draw and the legends drawing the balls are all joking for 45 minutes about how nobody understands the process or the rules, it’s probably a sign that you have made things too complicated.
6. Heidi Klum is taller than Kevin Hart.
7. Any journalist moaning about queuing at a major event requires a tiny violin more than a laptop, but the delays for those waiting to get into the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts were genuinely disgraceful. It was -3, snowing heavily and the security queue took over 90 minutes to clear. The problem: three scanners and manual bag checks rather than a bag scanner.
This has to improve next summer at stadiums, when the issue will be those waiting in extreme heat. The presence of President Trump had clearly precipitated the deployment of the Secret Service, but if this is the norm at the tournament then it will require far greater provisions than three scanners between thousands of draw guests and employees.
8. The Village People may seem a wild cultural choice for any major event in 2025, but there is an obvious (and depressing) explanation. YMCA, their major hit, became the soundtrack to Trump’s campaign trail in 2024.
Let’s face it: this was just another way in which Fifa’s president is intent on kowtowing to Trump politically. This is an entirely non-political organisation, of course.
9. Rio Ferdinand did very well to get the gig of leading the draw. I am prepared to believe that his improvisation ability didn’t come into the selection process. The real merking all along was against the concept of acting. Those video clips were truly horrendous.
Rio Ferdinand oversaw draw proceedings with Kevin Hart and Heidi Klum (Photo: Reuters)10. We are all Wayne Gretzky, who had clearly decided that the World Cup draw had gone on too long. Gretzky was in charge of pot four and drew the balls out of the glass bowl at such a pace that three times he had to be asked to slow down by the hosts. We’ve all got homes to go to, haven’t we Wayne. Yours is probably bigger than ours.
11. If Robbie Williams and Nicole Scherzinger do a joint album, put me down for not buying it based upon the on-stage chemistry. Also: the top half of Robbie’s face doesn’t move anymore.
12. Infantino grew into his own performance, but he did look a little nervous and flustered at first. Five minutes later, we craved that version as he asked for shout outs from each of the three host nations like a holiday rep or a pantomime actor. Gianni had the vibe of a celebrity who believes that they can try stand-up because it “can’t be that difficult” and nobody has thought to dissuade them.
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But the best Infantino moment was when he was introduced by one of the hosts as “the number one football fan in the world”. It is an exceptional – and heartwarming – coincidence that the biggest football fan in the world is also the president of its governing body.
13. If I hear one more weak gag line about calling it “soccer” rather than “football” then I will cry until I am sick.
14. “David Blackham”. Listen, fair play. And if you don’t get this reference because you missed the draw, go and watch it because it was the only joke that landed.
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