Lhe world has changed. Everyone seems to have understood this, except the International Football Federation (FIFA). In about ten days, the most disputed World Cup since that of 1978, in the Argentina of General Videla, will begin.
Even if it is always complicated to prioritize the aberrations, the next World Cup is unique. Unique, because it combines scandals on the ecological level – the installation of an air conditioning system in seven out of eight enclosures –, social – thousands of workers from Southeast Asia have died on Qatari construction sites –, and ethics – the conditions of attribution remain very opaque, to use an understatement.
Faced with these scandals, FIFA’s reactions have rarely been up to par. In the spring, for example, asked about the situation of migrant workers in Qatar, during a global conference of the Milken Institute in Los Angeles [en mai]Gianni Infantino, FIFA President, explained that by giving them work, even in difficult conditions, Qatar offered them “dignity and pride”. A line that echoes a previous release.
To defend his plan for a World Cup every two years, he did not hesitate to argue, in January, before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg: “We need to give hope to Africans that they don’t have to cross the Mediterranean to maybe have a better life here. We must give them opportunities and dignity. »
A time gone by
A real manipulation of values both the notion of ” dignity “invoked twice by Sepp Blatter’s successor, is irrelevant.
Fundamentally, FIFA seems stuck in an era where words were worth doing. A time, the 1980s, when oil companies could, for example, content themselves with TV spots highlighting peripheral actions to make people forget their ethical and environmental scandals.
Proof that this time is over, the soothing words of the International Football Federation are not enough to silence the protest. Calls for a boycott are increasing. Traditionally, NGOs and artists have led the rebellion and the media have seized on it.
What is less classic, however, is that former prestigious players have followed suit: Eric Cantona or Philipp Lahm have announced that they will distance themselves from the competition. Admittedly, these are not active players but, for once, the irenic clichés specific to football have not been taken up in unison. Better, in the face of increasing pressure, the former members of the executive committee go, one after the other, to Canossa.
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