In a rambling and tone-deaf speech this morning, Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, tried to stifle criticism of his Qatari pay-masters. “Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arabic. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel [like] a migrant worker. 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. As a child I was bullied, because I had red hair and freckles, plus I was Italian, so imagine. What do you do then? You try to engage, make friends. Don’t start accusing, fighting, insulting, you start engaging. And this is what we should be doing.”
Well, Infantino is obviously not one of the 6,500 migrant workers, because he’s still alive. Truly identifying with migrant workers might require him to work a gruelling 12-hour shift, in torrid heat, for about £1 an hour… and then do the same again tomorrow. He had to be reminded to include women - that’s half the world, right there - in the list of people with whom he found it so easy to identify. Someone will have to tell him that the consequences of having “red hair and freckles” are in no sense comparable to being gay in a country like Qatar. This World Cup is fascinating, rivetting… for all the wrong reasons.
Licenced today… for a fee that wouldn’t buy a set of L-plates…
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