FIFA World Cup 2026 Draw Ceremony turns a Grotesque Eyesore: Trump, Terrible Comedy, Infantino strips Football of its Soul

Eyesore!! This word is almost the general feeling of the majority who turned their devices on from across the globe, to witness the FIFA World Cup 2026 draw.

The fans expected a grand ceremony's curtain raiser to be a fitting one, but the mockery which they witnessed was beyond expectation.

The FIFA World Cup Draw Ceremony was a spectacular exercise in absurdity, a baffling display that managed to strip football of its very essence. At the center of this travesty stood Gianni Infantino, FIFA's beleaguered president, whose sycophantic pandering to Donald Trump, has reduced what should be a global celebration of sport into a grotesque spectacle of theatrical nonsense and political posturing.

To call it a ceremony is generous; it was a hollow charade

devoid of passion, insight, or any semblance of genuine footballing spirit. The event felt less like the unveiling of the most anticipated tournament on the planet and more like a crass attempt to curry favour with powerful personalities and media buzz, all while insulting the intelligence of the millions who live and breathe this game.

Infantino's craven embrace of Donald Trump, a figure whose divisive politics and checkered reputation are antithetical to the universal values football claims to champion, was nothing short of disgraceful. Instead of leveraging the World Cup draw as a platform to unite and inspire, FIFA stooped to awarding Trump the FIFA Peace Prize.

Trump was serenaded with trophies, medals, as Infantino read out the entire certificate of Peace Prize, with a baffling promotional video. It portryaed Trump as a messiah, who is supposedly the mediator of peace in this world. It was the farthest from football, closest to a boot-licking organisation succumbing under the leash.

This pandering speaks volumes about FIFA's decline under Infantino. a man more concerned with media optics and political alliances than with the purity of football itself. The choice of co-hosts was absurd, Heidi Klum and Kevin Hart - as their substanceless anchoring and terrible comedic approach made it worse. Even they didn't spare Rio Ferdinand, as the England legend had to go as per the script and engage with comedic exchanges with Hart and Daniel Ramirez.

The draw ceremony was conspicuously void of the richness that should accompany such an event. There was no storytelling about the teams, no nod to the players' journeys, no palpable excitement about the coming clashes on the pitch.

In elevating Trump and succumbing to empty spectacle, Infantino has shown a baffling misjudgment of his role. FIFA should be the guardian of football's integrity, the custodian of its global spirit - not a pantomime stage for political vanity and shallow entertainment.

The World Cup is supposed to be an event which brings people together, and a draw of such magnitude deserves the very fabric of it. Yet, here was FIFA, wilfully transforming it into a circus that alienates the very people who sustain the sport. This World Cup draw was everything but football. It was a farcical display that exposed the moral bankruptcy at FIFA's helm.