The FIFA president’s remarks before the World Cup kicked off were widely derided, but there is method in his apparent madness
Let’s follow Infantino’s invitation and try to understand the Qatari point of view. A summary: hosting the 2022 World Cup is a proud moment not only for Qatar, but for the Middle East and the wider Arab and Muslim worlds. We in Qatar have spent €200 billion to create the most extravagant sporting infrastructure the world has ever seen. But rather than come and enjoy it and admire our achievements and praise what we’ve done, you only complain and criticise and denigrate and make accusations.
You do it because it kills you to see the success story that is Qatar. You cannot bear to see your former imperial subjects richer than you by far, you cannot bear to be surpassed, you cannot accept that the future no longer belongs to you alone. And so you will do anything to criticise us, to undermine us, to bully us, and to claim false moral superiority over us.
This is the rhetoric of the new multipolarity, which you can hear everywhere from the speeches of the Russian president to the off-record briefings of Manchester City. The style, once mastered, is wonderfully adaptable.
English journalists pointed out to Infantino that his remarks had been received badly on social media, where people were mocking his absurd claims to universal empathy
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