Qatar bad choice for World Cup

FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s 57-minute monologue on the eve of the World Cup will do little to dispel perceptions that Qatar, with an appalling human rights record, is a poor choice of venue for the six-week event. Controversy continues to surround how the small, immensely rich Arab state with an unbearably hot climate and zero soccer pedigree managed to beat Australia, Japan and South Korea for the right to host the tournament.

Seldom has a sports administrator been more craven in his defence of a host nation. Mr Infantino used his childhood red hair and freckles (he is now bald), and the bullying these caused him at school, to accuse the world’s media of being racist hypocrites in criticising Qatar. “Today I have strong feelings. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel (like) a migrant worker,” he said, referring to the foreign workers, mainly from the Indian subcontinent who make up 88 per cent of Qatar’s population. More than 6500 migrant workers are estimated to have died over 10 years while working 14-hour days for a pittance in scorching heat on World Cup projects. Mr Infantino, who holds Swiss and Italian nationalities and earns $5.5m a year, continued: “I think for what we Europeans have been doing for 3000 years around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people.”

Does the FIFA boss believe Europeans should be apologising for the next 3000 years? Or does his grovelling backing for Qatar go to the heart of the controversy that continues to dog the international soccer body’s secret vote, which awarded the 2022 World Cup to Qatar and, before that, the 2018 World Cup to Vladimir Putin’s Russia?

The 11th-hour ban on beer sales at World Cup venues and warnings that homosexuality is a criminal offence that can result in severe punishment, even death, show the extent to which FIFA has failed to use the event to persuade Qatar’s rulers to bring change to the Arab state’s ways.

Mr Infantino has done neither himself nor FIFA any favours.