FIFA president Gianni Infantino has hit back at criticism of Qatar’s human rights record in an extraordinary press conference in Doha, the day before the World Cup kicks off in the Middle East.
Infantino began with a singular expression of his support for the LGBTQ community and migrant workers. “Today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arab, today I feel African, today I feel gay, today I feel disabled, today I feel a migrant worker,” he said. “I’m not Qatari, African, gay, disabled and I’m not really a migrant worker but I know what it means to be discriminated and bullied, as a foreign in a foreign country, as a child at school I was bullied because I had red hair and freckles.
I was bullied for that. “There are 1 billion disabled people in the world … and nobody cares.” In a 90-minute conference, Infantino lashed out at what he called the “hypocrisy” of those criticising the Muslim country. “This moral lesson-giving – one-sided – is just hypocrisy,” the Swiss said. “I don’t want to give you any lessons of life, but what is going on here is profoundly, profoundly unjust. “For what we Europeans have been doing for the last 3000 years we should apologise for the next 3000 years before starting giving moral lessons to people.
If Europe really care about the destiny of these people, they can create legal channels – like Qatar did – where a number of these workers can come to Europe to work.
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