The Muslim country of Qatar, host of the 2022 World Cup, has taken criticism for its sharia laws against homosexuality and its mistreatment of migrant workers. Still, FIFA and the World Cup are holding soccer’s biggest event in Qatar, anyway.
Now, FIFA President Gianni Infantino is taking criticism for belatedly expressing sympathy with gays and downtrodden migrant workers in Qatar with an address where he exclaimed that he “feels gay” and “feels like a migrant worker” in direct contravention to the host of the World Cup’s much-derided policies, Reuters reported.
As he opened the World Cup pre-game day press conference, Infantino went into a little speech as a way to address Qatar’s abusive human rights record.
“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 vagrant. Today I feel (like) a migrant worker,” Infantino said, adding, “I feel all of this because what I see … brings me back to my personal story.”
FIFA president Gianni Infantino during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group A match between Qatar and Ecuador at Al Bayt Stadium on November 20, 2022, in Al Khor, Qatar. (Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Infantino went on to describe his early days as the child of an immigrant couple in Switzerland who was “bullied” for his parentage and for having red hair and freckles.
He added that he knows he isn’t a Qatari, he isn’t gay, or an African, “But I feel like it because I know what it means to be discriminated, to be bullied, as a foreigner in a foreign country.”
Infantino immediately took criticism — especially from the gay community — because he isn’t gay and could make such remarks free from arrest by Qatar for just that reason. In other words, critics felt he faced no peril from his proclamation.
But FIFA’s director of media relations, Bryan Swanson, an out gay man, disagreed with the criticism.
“I’m sitting here in a privileged position on a global stage as a gay man here in Qatar. He has received assurances that everyone will be welcome,” Swanson said. “Just because Gianni Infantino is not gay does not mean he does not care. He does care.”
But the criticism still stands. It is easy for FIFA’s leaders to suddenly stand up now and side with oppressed people only hours before the World Cup kicks off in the oppressive Muslim nation.
Migrant workers pray on the Corniche in Doha, Qatar, on 20 November 2022, in the build-up to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. (Simon Holmes/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
But FIFA chose that nation to host the games, and for years during the planning of these games, did nothing to side with the oppressed people whom Infantino is so belatedly supporting.
Qatar’s legal system is based on a strict observance of Muslim sharia law. And that system outlaws premarital sex of all kinds. And most especially, sharia law makes homosexuality illegal.
Qatar has also taken criticism for the number of migrant workers who died during the construction of the facilities set to be used by the World Cup event.
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