“This was the best World Cup ever,” says Gianni Infantino, 52, in an interview with journalists on the eve of Argentina v France, the final of the 2022 World Cup.
It is nothing new for a FIFA president, when the Cup comes to an end, to utter that phrase. He had already used it in Russia, four years ago.
The most recent World Cup will always be the best, this is part of the diplomacy of the entity that governs football with the nation that hosts the World Cup and fills its coffers (hers, FIFA) with (a lot) money – the cycle between the World Cup 2018 and this year generated US$ 7.5 billion (almost R$ 40 billion) in revenue.
As the economic side prevails, the Qatar Cup is for Fifa compulsorily the best in history, even if it is not, not even in sports (it equaled the record of seven games 0 to 0 and the average of goals per game, of 2.63, was before the final match below that of 2018, 2.64) nor politically and socially.
It is a fact that the first World Cup in the Middle East can be seen as the one that gave the brilliant Messi the title most sought after by all those who play football, or as the one that provided France with the two / three of the young star Mbappé, depending on the result. this Sunday’s match (18th) at the Lusail stadium.
But it is equally a fact that it will be remembered as the World Cup in which FIFA turned a blind eye to the host country’s human rights horrors.
Qatar is known for offering precarious working conditions to immigrants (from poor countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) who work in civil construction – including building World Cup arenas.
Non-governmental organizations based in Europe and North America reported that hundreds of workers died during the works, despite the Qatari government denying this.
And, if the Qatari government says so, Infantino agrees, criticizing those who criticize him: “If Europe really cares about the fate of these people [trabalhadores migrantes]should create legal means, as Qatar did, to take them to work in Europe and give them a future and hope”.
Women and the LGBTQIA+ community are also marginalized in the country, where their rights and freedom are restricted and where having same-sex relationships can lead to imprisonment or the death penalty.
Asked about the topic, Infantino said that “we are defending values, we are defending human rights, the rights of everyone in the World Cup”.
A theoretical discourse that the practice tried to deny, since the entity that Infantino commands prevented the players, the main protagonists of the Cup, from being able to send the message to the world that there are serious problems in Qatar.
Captains of some European teams planned to wear the armband with the inscription “one love” (an expression in English that represents unity and inclusion) and the colors of the rainbow, linked to the LGBTQIA + movement. FIFA vetoed it, threatening to punish anyone who did so.
Infantino’s justification is that football is not a suitable stage for political manifestations.
“Everyone has their problems”, he said, to sentence that the fans should distance themselves from serious questions during the Cup games. “Fans just want to go through 90 minutes without having to think about anything else, [ter] a small moment of pleasure or emotion.”
Players who intended to wear the special armband, instructed by their respective federations, complied with Fifa’s order, and the World Cup followed, with Infantino, with authoritarianism, avoiding discomfort with the authorities of authoritarian Qatar.
It should be noted that the election of the absolutist monarchy Qatar to host the World Cup, 12 years ago, was full of suspicions of buying votes from FIFA representatives.
In subsequent years, allegations of corruption caused the ouster of FIFA committee members who voted in this year’s World Cup election and president Sepp Blatter.
With the fall of Blatter, Infantino, former secretary general of UEFA (the body that controls football in Europe), was elected president in 2016 – it is the ninth in the history of the entity, founded in 1904.
Some alleged irregularities in the management of the Italian-Swiss, such as conflict of interests and embezzlement of funds, splashed on him, but the accusations did not go ahead.
Infantino, so far, is winning disputes off the field and also inside it, since the opponents are in a derisory amount – half a dozen European countries.
Single candidate in the March 2023 election, if there are no unforeseen events, he will lead Fifa for another four-year term, a period in which he will see a swollen World Cup, the result of a change in his management.
The 2026 World Cup – in the US, Mexico and Canada and whose format is yet to be defined–, will have 48 countries, or 16 more than currently.
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