The FIFA World Cup 2022 has also been the center of major controversy due to the human rights of migrant laborers and the human rights of homosexuals being ignored.
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You must have seen that clip. Cameroonian football legend Samuel Eto’o kicked a disturbing fan in the stomach after the Brazil-South Korea match at the FIFA World Cup. After the video went viral, Eto’o offered a half-hearted apology for his actions, saying that “these actions did not match his personality”. “I had a violent altercation with a man who may have been a supporter of Algeria,” Eto’o wrote in a statement.
Describing the “violent brawl” (the correct word would be attack as the fans never seem to hit back), Eto’o wrote how Algerian supporters repeatedly jeered him after Cameroon qualified for the World Cup on the away goals rule. They are doing the work of provocation and harassment.
Will action be taken against Eto?
Eto’o is much more than a former footballer. He is the President of the Cameroonian Football Federation. He is the Global Legacy Ambassador of the Qatar 2022 Organizing Committee. He is also part of the FIFA Legends program which uses former footballers to promote the game. In short, he is a man of considerable status and social prestige in football.
Said Mamouni, the Algerian YouTuber who was attacked, said that he has filed a complaint with the Qatari police. However, no one should be surprised if there is no action in this.
Can anyone expect Eto’o to be dropped from the FIFA Legends program or the organizers of FIFA Qatar 2022? Could the former star be told he will no longer be welcome at the Games?
Everyone is welcome, except for…
FIFA President Gianni Infantino wrote in a letter to all 32 football federations of the teams competing in Qatar 2022 that “everyone, regardless of origin, background, religion, gender, sexual orientation or nationality, is welcome here (in Qatar)”. welcome in”.
One rule has so far run in Qatar: all are welcome, but some are more welcome than others.
That is why while general spectators and fans have been told that there will be no alcohol in the stands of any stadium in Qatar 2022, those with access to luxury hospitality areas can drink as much alcohol as they want while sitting in their seats. This too in a country where public consumption of alcohol is illegal on religious grounds.
In that letter to the 32 teams, Infantino also said: “At FIFA we try to respect all opinions and beliefs without giving moral lessons to the rest of the world… No one person, culture or nation is ‘better’ than another .”
A question can be asked of Mr. Infantino. What is the point of competing in the World Cup if it is to prove that no nation is better than another?
In a fortnight, FIFA promoted the Football World Cup as just a goodwill gesture between people, at the behest of the organizers of Qatar 2022.
This was the motto through which Infantino inspired the 32 teams to “concentrate only on football”. He was instructed that “he would not be allowed to drag any kind of ideological or political battle into the game of football”.
FIFA has shown that it is serious about this matter. Serbian-born Canadian goalkeeper Milan Borjan has been fined by the Croatian Football Federation for being taunted by his supporters. Football’s global governing body also fined the Serbian Football Federation for a banner in the locker room. The banner showed a map showing the independent country of Kosovo as part of Serbia and the slogan “No Surrender”.
However, FIFA turned a blind eye to this fact even after Moroccan players appeared with the Palestinian flag after their shock defeat to Spain. It would be purely coincidental here that the host nation Qatar is one of Palestine’s biggest allies.
Iranian fans in Qatar reported that they were not allowed to carry banners and flags supporting the protesters against their country’s government. Some of these banners carried slogans such as “Women, Life, Freedom” and “Mahsa Amini” in tribute to the 22-year-old Iranian woman who was killed by the country’s morality police. FIFA later issued a statement assuring Iranian fans that they could carry banners in stadiums after Iran was out of the World Cup. Another possible coincidence: Iran and Qatar are known to share good diplomatic relations as Iran was one of the first countries to recognize Qatar’s independence. It is pertinent to mention here that while FIFA wants to ensure that the World Cup is as apolitical as possible, it has expelled the Russian team from the qualifying tournament on charges of invading Ukraine.
Before FIFA starts justifying Russia’s exclusion from the tournament citing human rights violations, it should do an internet search about Qatar 2022 and human rights violations.
In addition to controversial political topics, FIFA has opened an investigation into anti-gay slogans by Ecuadorian and Mexican fans during group stage games. FIFA has given all this during the World Cup as a gift to a country where homosexuality is a crime! That too in a World Cup in which FIFA put pressure on the seven European confederations, who were planning to play the game by wearing Onelove armbands on the wrists of their captains. Qatar 2022 organizers did not allow symbols such as rainbow flags and bucket hats to be brought onto the field (for example stadium officials argued with a South American journalist when he was carrying the flag of Brazil’s northeastern country of Pernambuco ) because they thought it might be symbolic of supporting the (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community.
A day before the start of the World Cup, Infantino said in front of the world media, “Today I feel like a resident of Qatar. Today, I feel like being an Arab person. Today, I feel like an African.” During this, he tried to expose the hypocrisy of the critics of the host nation in western countries by lecturing them.
The irony is that in whatever form he felt himself in the speech, nothing was seen in reality.
“Today I feel gay… today I feel like a migrant worker,” the $3 million annual salary man continued. But I wish he felt like the people who worked for 50-60 pence an hour to build Qatar’s infrastructure for the World Cup.
Infantino has spent a lot of time in the stadium’s hospitality lounge – you know the rules don’t apply there for normal people. There he was deceiving people by saying that he felt like a homosexual, that too in a country where homosexuality comes under the category of crime.
– Amit Kamath
