Fifa: “How low can Infantino sink?” – Sport

The humanitarian catastrophe in Africa, climate change, the massive south-north migration across the separating Mediterranean Sea – these are probably the most pressing problems of our time. Now for the good news: There is finally someone who has found the solution: Gianni Infantino presented it to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (Pace) on Wednesday: Just do a football World Cup more often! Every two years – instead of every four, as before.

What sounds like a dropout among beer-loving bowling siblings sounded like this in the Strasbourg speaker: “We have to find ways to involve the whole world, to give Africans hope, so that they no longer have to come across the Mediterranean to maybe find a better one To find life – or, more likely, death at sea!” The FIFA boss explained that it was important to give the Africans “opportunities and dignity”. How it works? Infantino wants to know the answer: “Not by being charitable, but by letting everyone participate!” At football.

So more World Cup tournaments, more billions for the table football business, so that desperate people without food, a job and a future don’t flee the continent and die. Even the Fifa boss must have been tinkering with this nonsense for a little longer – and the global outrage was immense.

Fifa says the statement was “misinterpreted”.

“How low can Infantino sink?” asked director Ronan Evain of football supporters Europe. To exploit the death in the Mediterranean to sell a “megalomaniac plan” is “beyond all words”. Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter noted that the lecture was “unworldly and defamatory”. And in the tweeting football community there was a lot of talk about racism behind these statements.

In the meantime, Infantino was trying to recapture his global political ideas because of the wave of protests. It was “misinterpreted” and “taken out of context” because he, uh, actually wanted to say “that everyone in a position of responsibility has a responsibility to help improve the situation for people around the world”. In addition, it was not limited to the African continent.

In the plenary session, many were speechless, at first nobody in the hall could stand up to the world football boss. A scandal official who is being investigated by the Swiss criminal justice system in various cases – and who, according to industry experts in sports and justice, recently moved to Qatar, the host country of the next World Cup (from November), with his family against this background.

Infantino also spread monstrosities about his new adopted country of Qatar

At the end of his statesmanlike appearance, Infantino was able to spread something outrageous, which, however, should go down well in his new home country: he wanted to “clarify a few things” about the human rights situation in the World Cup country. When he hears “that 6,500 people died in the construction of football stadiums in Qatar, that’s simply not true. The correct number is: three people died” – he showed three fingers. Every life is important, but there is a big difference between three and 6500.

That is at least a highly problematic way of counting, which is based entirely on the official data from the Supreme Committee (SC) in Doha. Infantino ignores all of the so-called “non-work-related” deaths, complains Nicholas McGeehan of the human rights organization Fairsquare, but these “account for more than 90 percent of deaths in SC projects”. According to the NGO, these cases were “arbitrarily classified as ‘non-work-related’ without any investigation into the causes of death”.

Furthermore, Fifa ignores all other fatalities in Qatar, a large number of which are linked to the construction of full World Cup infrastructure – although Fifa itself acknowledged in a 2017 policy paper that its responsibilities extend to “event-related infrastructure and event-related supply chains”.

The current report by Amnesty International also refers to “thousands of unexplained deaths”. Cardiac arrest and “natural causes” were repeatedly diagnosed in deceased young men. But experts would confirm that such designations are not meaningful descriptions of the cause of death – and “suggest that appropriate investigations were probably not carried out”.

The stories of the new Qatari in the Council of Europe were silently followed by a top-paid Allied Infantinos, who is supposed to promote the idea of ​​the new World Cup rhythm: Arsène Wenger. Once a coach of one of the most prominent industry representatives, he fought for months for Infantino’s pet project; in the end you haven’t heard anything. Wenger also remained silent in Strasbourg, where he was once a professional. But every word could easily have raised questions about his previous assistant: Steven Martens. The Belgian was missing, he shouldn’t drum for the new World Cup permanent format anymore. Because the domestic criminal authorities have the Technical Fifa Director in their sights.

A man who should implement the dream of the two-year rhythm is in the sights of local criminal investigators.

Martens is one of 57 officials, coaches and referees whom the Brussels public prosecutor’s office wants to indict as part of their “Clean Hands” operation. He joined Fifa for a big buck in 2017, despite having previously left Belgium’s federation amid a financial scandal. The charges against the ex-CEO of the association and other top officials are about offshore companies, excessive bonuses and the exciting question of why the association took 61 million euros at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, but an internal audit showed that he ended the same year with a minus of 200,000 euros. Martens left shortly after.

Martens’ work carried a lot of weight for Infantino: the Belgian, alongside Wenger, was supposed to realize the dream of the World Cup in a continuous loop. The project can now finally be ticked off as a failure. Europe and South America would not play along anyway, and Uefa announced hours after Infantino’s scandalous appearance that the Pace Convention had passed a resolution to give it backing and warn of potentially “disastrous” consequences of Infantino’s plans.

Incidentally, Infantino’s sea rescue was not well received at the current Africa Cup of Nations either. Parts of the continental federation Caf are leaving him, and at the opening ceremony of the Africa Cup of Nations in Yaounde, Cameroon’s capital two weeks ago, a storm of protest rang out through the stadium when Infantino’s name was mentioned. The hobby Qatari is getting lonely, and the Swiss criminal justice system may also be digging up more things by the next Fifa election congress in 2023. After all, Infantino was completely correct in the Strasbourg guest performance with his final remark: “What we give the world is: Emotions!”