Allegedly “misinterpreted”
Infantino explains strange statements about Africa
01/27/2022 11:29 am
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has caused confusion with confused theses about the connection between the number of refugees and the World Cup. After harsh criticism, he tries to come up with an explanation. However, that doesn’t make things much better.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino has backpedaled after his abstruse Africa statement in defense of his controversial World Cup plans. “Certain comments” seemed to be “misinterpreted” and “taken out of context,” said a statement released by the World Football Association after the Swiss player’s speech to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. However, the comments are more of a supplementary character, because they do not contradict Infantino’s statements, which many had interpreted as misanthropic.
“We have to involve the whole world. We can’t say to the rest of the world: Give us your money and your players – and watch on TV,” Infantino said on Wednesday after he had discussed his idea of hosting the World Cup in two annual rhythm instead of every four years – had come to speak. He continued: “We must give hope to Africans so that they no longer have to come across the Mediterranean to perhaps find a better life or, more likely, death at sea.”
He thus constructed a connection that the more frequent staging of the World Cup means that fewer people decide to leave their homeland. Especially since Africa is a continent with 55 countries, around 1.5 billion people and well over 1000 languages, which means that such a generalized statement should be out of the question anyway.
Even Blatter criticized
But now Infantino wanted to “make it clear that the broader message in my speech was that everyone in a decision-making position has a responsibility to help improve the situation of people around the world,” Infantino said in the statement. It was “a general comment” that was not directly related to the plans to shorten the World Cup rhythm to two years. The harsh criticism of his statements that he is using colonialist stereotypes among other things should change little or nothing.
His predecessor as FIFA boss, Sepp Blatter, also contradicted the statements. Infantino wants to “save the world – but doesn’t realize that his statements are not only ironic, but cynical, and his relation to Africa is unworldly and defamatory.” Blatter, who is at the center of numerous allegations of corruption and repeatedly criticizes his successor , also renewed his concerns about the possible shortening of the World Cup cycle to two years. This would “turn the FIFA pyramid on its head,” he said.
In addition, Infantino had once again defended the World Cup hosts Qatar, which had been criticized for human rights violations, before the Council of Europe and rejected reports of thousands of deaths on the construction sites. The “Guardian” had revealed that around 6,500 workers in Qatar have died of overwork, heat or sudden cardiac death since the World Cup was awarded. At its core, it is about systematic abuse, to which guest workers in particular are exposed. Infantino put these numbers into perspective and used the argument of “change through football”, which FC Bayern also liked to use, but which can hardly be empirically proven.