Leer en Español
FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s statements during the press conference on the eve of the start of the World Cup in Qatar have won the Idiocy of the Week award from El American.
There were two highlights of Gianni Infantino’s appearance that made us raise our eyebrows first, and roll our eyes later.
The choice of Qatar to host the World Cup has been heavily contested, with accusations of bribery and corruption. Apart from the weather conditions -which forced the World Cup not to be held during the summer-, the strict Muslim rules of the Qatari theocracy and the poor working conditions in the country have been the main controversies surrounding this event.
Perhaps in a sort of homage to the infamous Italian catenaccio tactics, Gianni Infantino began by digging in defensively in the face of journalists’ questions.
He began by resorting to fashionable techniques: victimhood and “self-perception”. “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.”
For Infantino, is being Qatari, Arab, African, gay, migrant worker and disabled equivalent? Perhaps being gay and/or a migrant worker in Qatar can be problematic, but what is his thought process to conclude that feeling those things gives him oppression points?
His mind seems to be infected with “intersectionality,” that word invented by progressive white Western elites to define the phenomenon whereby for every individual who supposedly suffers oppression, there is another who enjoys privilege, according to different social categories.
According to this condescending delusion, a Qatari sheikh has nothing to envy to a white redneck from the south of the United States or an unemployed European from a slum in the outskirts of London. The latter would be white trash undeserving of compassion, while the sheikh would be the unfortunate victim of Western capitalist oppression… or something along those lines.
In his rant, Infantino lacked supposedly discriminated minorities to identify with in order to try to become a victim, and thus not have to explain himself to the questions raised by journalists.
He could have said that he also feels like a woman despite being a man -that is now a trend-; that he feels obese despite being thin -that fatphobia is moving up the rankings-; that he feels mentally ill despite the fact that he does not seem to be diagnosed -although now we have to call them people with special and divergent mental capacities-; and that he feels bald –because since Will Smith’s slapping at the Oscars, alopecia is trying to get a place in the protectionist woke catalog.
However, he did say that “I know what it means to be discriminated [against]”. He added that he was bullied because “I had red hair,” emphasizing the verb tense.
Infantino moves from defense to attack
Infantino moves from defense to attack As Gianni Infantino realized that victimhood was not enough to appease reporters, his defensive posture quickly shifted to counterattack, something that, incidentally, is common among those who use these strategies: playing the poor victims and then setting themselves up as implacable executioners. Something like Shrek’s kitten.
“I think for what we Europeans have been doing the last 3,000 years we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before starting to give moral lessons to people,” Infantino assured very solemnly.
As if by magic, the blame for the allegedly murky relations between FIFA and Qatar lies with the great-great-grandparents of the white Europeans. In other words, we, the living and well-to-do Europeans, have to apologize for what our ancestors allegedly did.
What should have been a reflection of self-criticism by FIFA, ended up becoming Infantino “self-criticizing” the ghosts of past Europeans. Even the dead have to ask for forgiveness here, but neither theocracies that violate human rights, nor those who apparently do business with them, have to do so.
Infantino’s words are doubly clumsy. On the one hand, playing the woke victim does not fit as an excuse to justify the obvious problems of the Qatari World Cup. On the other hand, they are not woke enough to have the unconditional support of the usual haters of Western civilization created by Europe.
In fact, in his own press conference, he was confronted with the question of why he left out half of the world’s population by not saying that he felt he was a woman.
Furthermore, by giving Europe control of FIFA, an international body, he is erring on the side of “Eurocentrism” in the eyes of, for example, many South Americans who now feel excluded by Infantino and cannot agree with him even if they feel compelled to do so.
Moreover, given the relative unimportance of soccer in the US and his focus on blaming Europe, Infantino does not have the support of the American progressive woke, who would have been willing to defend Qatar and FIFA in order to attack the West if Infantino had been more skillful.
Finally, by saying that he feels gay, he will not have the support of Muslims in general, and in particular Qatar is already beginning to turn the page of the World Cup, even without having finished, because for them the important thing has already happened in recent years and the sporting competition is a mere contractual formality to be fulfilled.
The fact that after half-time of the opening match between Qatar and Ecuador the stadium stands were empty of Qatari fans is a poetic metaphor for the latter. With these statements, Gianni Infantino will be left all alone in the stands defending a World Cup that everyone is turning their backs on.
Ignacio Manuel García Medina, Business Management teacher. Artist and lecturer specialized in Popular Culture for various platforms. Presenter of the program "Pop Libertario" for the Juan de Mariana Institute. Lives in the Canary Islands, Spain // Ignacio M. García Medina es profesor de Gestión de Empresas. Es miembro del Instituto Juan de Mariana y conferenciante especializado en Cultura Popular e ideas de la Libertad.
Social Networks: @ignaciomgm