Soccer

How Trump and FIFA’s Gianni Infantino teamed up to rebrand peace

When you attend the court of King Donald, it’s important to genuflect. Unfamiliar foreigners in need of pointers can look to the man who is currently the most assiduous non-American flatterer: FIFA president Gianni Infantino. It’s only natural that, in the lead-up to this year’s soccer World Cup, the president of the global governing body of the sport should make regular visits to the host nation. Yet Infantino has gone above and beyond. He appears to have spent more time in Donald Trump’s orbit than some of the President’s cabinet secretaries. Infantino has been a willing accomplice in Trump’s campaign to secure the Nobel Peace Prize On paper, it would

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Australia finally did right by Iran’s brave women’s soccer players

In 1989, as tanks rolled into central Beijing to crush the pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, Australia’s then prime minister, Bob Hawke, spontaneously offered asylum to all Chinese citizens who happened to be in Australia. Thousands took up his offer and made lasting contributions to the country that gave them shelter. Last Tuesday, the women showed personal courage by taking a silent but very public stand against a regime that stops at nothing to punish open disloyalty On Tuesday, Hawke’s successor, Anthony Albanese, granted five women of Iran’s national soccer team asylum, and offered it to all those in the team’s party. Unlike Hawke, however, Albanese did the right thing

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