The FIFA president delivered a one-hour tirade on the eve of the World Cup's opening match, and then spent about 45 minutes answering questions from media about the Qatari government's actions and a wide-range of other topics.
"Today I feel Qatari," Infantino said Saturday at the start of his first news conference of the World Cup. "Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker.""I feel like a woman," the FIFA president responded.
Infantino defended the country's immigration policy, and praised the government for bringing in migrants to work. Qatar is governed by a hereditary emir who has absolute say over all governmental decisions and follows an ultraconservative form of Islam known as Wahhabism. In recent years, Qatar has been transformed following a natural gas boom in the 1990s, but it has faced pressure from within to stay true to its Islamic heritage and Bedouin roots.
"What we Europeans have been doing for the past 3,000 years we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years before we start giving moral lessons to people," said Infantino, who moved last year from Switzerland to live in Doha ahead of the World Cup.A televised speech by Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, on Oct.
FIFA has declined to publicly comment significantly on that issue, or on the urging of European soccer federations for FIFA to support a compensation fund for the families of migrant workers.FIFA now has its own armband designs, with more generic slogans, in partnership with various U.N. agencies. Armbands for the group games say: "FootballUnitesTheWorld," "SaveThePlanet," "ProtectChildren," and "ShareTheMeal.
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