As of 19 November 2022, the Fifa President is officially an African, Qatari and gay migrant worker. And that was just the start of his Rabulist speech before the World Cup opening in Doha. A speech that will affect our confidence in football’s most powerful body for a long time to come. Football, not reconciliation Infantino has long been aware that he is tired and fed up with the criticism surrounding the World Cup. That he would present it the way he did now, very few had imagined. When Infantino had the one, unique chance to steer the critics in a direction that could change the aftermath of this World Cup, he did the exact opposite. And it’s actually a little surprising. Because he had an opportunity – and abused it so thoroughly. SURPRISED: Saltvedt was surprised by the speech of the Fifa president. Photo: MOLLY DARLINGTON / Reuters It was a speech that was jarring, it was illogical, it was crude, and most of all it was remarkably unconciliatory. Reconciliation is otherwise a message that even these hypocritical critics, in practice us northern Europeans and some Americans, could still listen to. An understanding of what has been difficult, but that we all have to come together if there is actually to be change. And at the same time, it was as if we had heard most of the argument before. The one about stopping criticizing and engaging instead. The one that a World Cup in football is one of the few meeting places that can really create understanding between people – if you just stop criticizing. The host’s speech Or mention the far too many migrant workers who have been sent home in a coffin. Instead, he talks about how we are all “football people” and do not want to be politicians. The only problem is that he himself is to that degree – in position, but even more so in content. Infantino runs a constant political game – and rarely has it been more clumsily camouflaged than in his speech in Doha, where he has also lived for much of the past year. GOOD RELATIONSHIP: Infantino and head of the WC committee Hassan Al-Thawadi. Photo: HAMAD I MOHAMMED / Reuters Was Infantino’s speech simply written by the Qatari authorities themselves? It could definitely sound that way. All of the rhetoric was adapted to the image they and their many and expensive PR staff wanted to paint of the Gulf state’s own governance. Nevertheless, we must give Infantino the credit that lies in the fact that this could very well have been something he could very well have achieved on his own. Including the absolutely sensational introduction. The one about him being gay, Arab, African and disabled. And more to. Infantino has said this will be remembered as the World Cup of all time, that it will create memories for the whole world. It is possible that he will actually be right – if he himself will continue to contribute as wholeheartedly as he did today. What was supposed to set the mood for a reconciliation was instead a speech and a rhetoric that will only prolong and widen the division that has existed in the run-up to the World Cup. Hypocrites and racists The powerful, Western European football nations are portrayed as hypocritical. And he didn’t stop there. Far from it. Those who have rightly criticized and ridiculed the obvious PR stunt earlier this week, where the organizers dressed up migrant workers in World Cup uniforms and sent them out into the streets as cheering football supporters from the respective World Cup nations, were called “racist”. On Friday, thousands of Indian migrant workers appeared in the streets of Doha to cheer on the World Cup nations This is how a man who knows where he buys his votes speaks, if not in the form of traditional corruption, then instead through promises of support for development, of a place in good company. Or, more precisely, the best company, Infantino is to be believed. And Infantino is heard in many places around the world for his views. Fifa has 211 member nations, as Infantino himself loves to highlight, and in the vast majority of them this World Cup is all about a football party and only that. Does Infantino therefore want to turn this into a culture battle, to secure the support of nations who also feel that the European criticism is inappropriate, he succeeded well. Did Infantino want to create some kind of confidence in how Fifa will avoid such stale processes as those that have led us to this World Cup, he failed completely. But I suspect more and more that the Fifa president lives very well with his priorities. STUPID AND IGNORANT: This is how Saltvedt describes the Fifa president. Photo: GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP Because if Infantino appears somewhere between stupid and ignorant in his hour-long monologue, he also revealed that he can count. Whether it concerns income from TV rights – or secure votes in the next presidential election. For Infantino speaks as he does in the safe exile that he is untouchable. Qatar is the new Switzerland Where he tells his story of growing up from a life in Switzerland as the son of Italian immigrants. Where he was teased for his red hair and freckles. About a Switzerland, where neither gays nor women got their rights until well into the 1990s. That development takes time. In migrant worker son Gianni Infantino’s fairytale world, Qatar is the new Switzerland. Where nothing is said about dead migrant workers or lack of rights for women or homosexuals. But where everything will be fine in the end – if you focus on the football and forget the politics. Infantino’s gay helper Eventually it became clear that Infantino was not African after all. He only spoke in pictures. As if we hadn’t understood his obvious message. He’s not gay either. On the other hand, it is his press manager, Bryan Swanson, who apparently spontaneously spoke at the end of Fifa’s mildly embarrassing press stunt. Swanson told the audience that he is gay, that he feels safe in Qatar – and not least if the private side of Gianni Infantino the public is so unfortunate as not to get to experience. Sorry, Brian. I do not believe you. When you say that Infantino, this disabled African, really cares. As I can safely say. In my hypocritical part of the world. I’m also very glad I’m not gay in Qatar. And because there is only a month until the World Cup of all time is over.
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