Fifa chief’s stunning admission: ‘Today I feel tone-deaf’
Giovanni Infantino, president of Fifa, sat down for his annual pretournament press conference with the world’s media.
Dressed in a black power suit, his head and face freshly shaved like he’d come straight from the barber, he looked every bit the most powerful man in world football.
Flanked by the official ball of the World Cup and by two drink bottles from sponsors Powerade and Smart
Water, he checked his notes one last time.
The 52-year-old Italian placed his left hand on the desk as his right hand came up to support his head, fingers resting on his pale cheek, while his thumb went under his chin in what pub pundits around the world would recognise as the sign of a man with deep, heavy thoughts.
‘‘Today,’’ he began, ‘‘I have very strong feelings, I can tell you that.’’
What followed will go down in history as one of the most extraordinary speeches ever committed to camera. It immediately called into question the contents of the Smart Water bottle next to him.
‘‘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.’’
There was a tense silence between every sentence. The media seemed acutely aware that history was being made, and none of them wanted to be recorded anywhere near it.
For non-sporting fans, what prompted this tirade of tonedeafness, this soliloquy of surreal similes, was the well-documented reporting of the abuses the majority migrant workforce of Qatar has faced in constructing the facilities of the World Cup. Many have found themselves in situations that resemble bonded contracts and, with some employers withholding pay, indentured servitude.
As has been widely reported, several hundred migrant workers die each year in the country. The negative press prompted a Fifa discussion with the Qatar government and positive law changes were finally made in 2020, a full decade after Qatar was awarded the tournament.
Then there are Qatar’s discriminating laws against the LGBTQI+ community, with campaigning for rights outlawed. It has prompted both football fans and personalities from around the world to call for a boycott of the World Cup, and left others conflicted about watching the tournament.
Controversy at World Cups is nothing new. The 2018 tournament was in Russia, which is preoccupied this year with a series of own goals. The 2014 tournament was in Brazil shortly before it elected farright nationalist Jair Bolsonaro.
Arguably the most controversial part of South Africa 2010 were naive Kiwi fans who, caught up in passionate support for their team, proudly held up signs in South African stadiums proclaiming ‘‘Go All Whites!’’
P
erhaps the focus should simply be about the players and games, but you can’t have a World Cup and forget about the world, nor would fans really want that.
Yes, the incredible athletes doing incredible sport is the main reason to watch, but the off-field stories are often what strikes a chord with viewers the most.
Consider the Rugby League World Cup, which is – with apologies to Mt Smart Stadium – by international standards a niche sport. Think of how Samoa, a Pacific nation with an on-island population of around 200,000, made headlines across the planet with their celebrations of just making the final. They didn’t win, but noone would know because they are still celebrating and probably will be till Christmas.
Or the Women’s Rugby World Cup, where a final so tense that New Zealand is still recovering from it was followed by players imploring governments and organisations to invest more in the women’s game.
Even Qatar 2022 has allowed Ehsan Hajsafi, captain of Iran, to support protesters in his homeland, where more than 14,000 have been arrested and hundreds have died.
The stakes for speaking out are incredibly high. Voria Ghafouri, part of the preliminary 2018 squad and Hajsafi’s former team-mate, was arrested days later.
So when Infantino boldly stated to media: ‘‘Of course I am not Qatari, I am not an Arab, I am not African, I am not gay, I am not disabled. But I feel like it, because I know what it means to be discriminated [against], to be bullied, as a foreigner in a foreign country . . . because I had red hair and freckles, plus I was Italian . . .’’
He may have misread their confusion at his tone-deafness. One journalist queried: ‘‘You didn’t say you feel like a woman.’’
‘‘I forgot!’’ Infantino corrected, holding up his hand to placate the masses. ‘‘I feel like a woman. I’m sorry, I feel like a woman.’’
Had he drawn a line down the middle of his head afterwards, he might have been able to imagine better what he looked like to the rest of the world.