Infantino, Fifa and its delusion of omnipotence (but at least it didn’t accuse us of hypocrisy) – Corriere.it

We are ready to take on all the ills of the world, but not the ones it brings upon us Gianni Infantino, president of FIFA, in inaugurating the Qatar Football World Cup, in Doha. To fend off the many criticisms that the organization is receiving, starting from the too many dead slaves (the English newspaper The Guardian carried out an investigation that would have brought to light the deaths of around 6500 people), Infantino denounced the hypocrisy of the lessons morals of the West: What is going on is profoundly unfair. The criticisms are hypocritical and for what we Europeans have done in the last 3,000 years we should apologize for the next 3,000 years before lecturing others on morals. Forgive him, first of all, instead of being paraculaggine: Today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arab, today I feel African, today I feel gay, today I feel disabled, today I feel like a migrant worker, thus embellished his speech introductory.

And speaking of the violent criticisms of human rights and discrimination, especially from the LGBTQ movement, he said: I know what it’s like to be discriminated against, harassed, as a foreigner. As a child I was discriminated against (in Switzerland, ed), because I had red hair and freckles: I was Italian and spoke German badly.

The heavy discrimination suffered in Switzerland (in Qatar homosexuality considered a mental illness and carries sentences of up to seven years in prison) did not stop him from becoming one of the highest paid managers in the world. According to CalcioeFinanza.it, the FIFA president would receive a salary of around 1.40 million euros per year. At his disposal he would also have benefits such as a car and accommodation, with an attached variable reimbursement of expenses attributable to 1800 euros per month.

As for scandals and corruption, we thought that Sepp Blatter, the previous president of FIFA, had reached the worst, as told by the FIFA docu-series, all revelations (Netflix). One is impressed to learn how Qatar bought these World Cups: in 2009, when the race to assign the World Cup started, there were no stadiums or hotels in the country for guests; the cities would have to be completely reorganized. But with money you buy everything: from Paris Saint-Germain (whose signings of players have upset the world economy of football) to the interruption of the European championships, from the World Cup in the desert to global visibility. The hope was that the new presidency would mark a discontinuity line and instead Infantino it turned Fifa into something of a international political body, a generator of omnipotence delusions. Called by the Council of Europe (it was last January) to report on human rights violations in Qatar, Infantino took advantage of that venue to propose the World Cup every two years! He said it was for the well of Africa: To give hope to Africans, so that they don’t need to cross the Mediterranean to perhaps find a better life, but more likely death at sea. Here she is solution which no one had ever thought of! Due to the prestige and popularity that football has in the world, the president has been invited to play a role of mediator between Europe and the controversial Arab emirate. Result? Infantino one of the most influential Western politicians a Dohawhere he has lived since October 2021 (he lives in luxury, one might add, our fault for 3,000 years).

In his opening speech he added: How many of these European or Western companies that make millions from Qatar, billions, how many of them have addressed the rights of migrant workers with the authorities? The injustice it must always be charged to the balance of others. As Valerio Moggia wrote on LinkiestaInfantino the perfect mediator, one of the few men capable of maintaining excellent relations with Vladimir Putin and Western countries, between monarchy of Qatar and that of Saudi Arabia, between the United States and China. And Fifa is the ideal place to carry out his projects: sometimes someone, with too narrow-minded views, has imagined a political future for him in the strict sense, once he leaves Zurich; but the reality is that Fifa is the ideal venue from which to exercise one’s indirect power, the soft power par excellence. There is no higher rung on the ladder of power. Okay, Fifa a very powerful center of power, not only financial, and we are not so naïve as to invoke candid souls at its top: we would like at least that the hypocrites did not accuse the whole world of hypocrisy.