Tribune News Network
The FIFA World Cup 2022 to be held in Qatar – also the first in the Middle East – will be a game-changer for the entire world, feels FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
The FIFA President expressed his view while speaking at a seminar ahead of the Sports Media Awards of AIPS (International Sports Journalists’ Association) in Budapest on Monday.
Speaking on the subject of the forthcoming 2022 World Cup and Qatar’s readiness, Infantino said, “Qatar will be the country that will be ready before any other. It will be a fantastic event, a game-changer for the world as well because people will go to Qatar and see a lot of the prejudice we have to the Arab world has no reasons to exist.”
On the overall scenario of the sport, Infantino stressed that he wanted to make football global. “My mission and my objective is to make football global. It is crucial to understand that why we say football is the number sport in the world. If you search deeply, you will realise that top football is naturally concentrated in a few countries. We need to care about football not being only in a few countries and this is why I was in Africa. Six out of the eight quarter-finalists at the FIFA World Cup in Russia were European countries. The gap is getting bigger and bigger between Europe and the rest of the world,” he said.
In the last two days, Infantino, who recently became an IOC Member, was also in Rabat, Morocco, where he spoke on the development of competitions and infrastructure in African football.
About the growing racism in the sport, Infantino said FIFA is very clear that there will be no tolerance. “A referee can interrupt the match if there is a racist incident, they should do it. If this continues, match will be abandoned, and the team you are supporting will lose the match. This is only starting in a few countries. If they don’t intervene, FIFA will,” he clarified.
On increasing the number of teams in Club World Cup, Infantino said, “I want to clarify this, about the new Clubs World Cup; we take away two competitions, the current Clubs World Cup and the Confederations Cup. We are not adding, we are replacing for the benefit of football”.
On future World Cups, the FIFA President was of the view that more bidding countries will only help football. “For 2030 I will respect the will of the people. If they want to be more open, we will look into it, for me, the more bidders we have the happier I am”. Infantino said of the rotation system for 2030 World Cup bids.
Infantino was also keen on popularising women’s football. “I have four daughters, when I go home I have a lot of pressure, 5-1, if I don’t support women’s football, he joked.
On a serious note, he added: “It’s time to have gender equality on and off the pitch, in the meeting rooms, in management. But it’s not enough. We had the most successful women’s World Cup in France and many for the first time realised it is a real sport, it’s not boring, it’s not slow, and the stadiums were vibrating with matches.
“I would like to create a Clubs’ World Cup for women and to increase the number of teams in competitions and for this we need to invest. We need to invest, we decided to invest 1 billion dollars for the next years in women’s football, I proposed to have a World Cup every two years.
“In the last decade in UEFA people were concentrated in creating competitions and events, now they have Europa League, and other changes. In the rest of world, including in FIFA, people were sadly concentrated in other activities.”