Fifa president makes problematic speech defending Qatar

A person in power says, to one single big society, that people shouldn’t be able to give moral criticism and advice if they have done wrong themselves. But there is no perfect person like that, therefore no one can give any criticism and advice.

Gianni Infantino: Fifa President

We are seeing a lot of problems with the Qatar world cup so far. On a larger scale and on a smaller scale. Examples are: the mistreatment of migrant workers who built the stadiums, the ignorance towards inclusivity of LGBTQIA+ communities and other specific nations, and even bribing actors to act as hardcore Qatar fans in the stadium. 

The backlash to these issues, and simply the fact that the world cup 2022 is in Qatar, has been huge. People worldwide have been criticising and grumbling about both Qatar and FIFA, many people also boycotting the event. 

In response to all of this, the day before the football started, FIFA president ‘Gianno Infantino’ turned a news conference into a rant defending Qatar. He called out Europe (being European himself) for being hypercritical in their judgements about Qatar, saying, “For what we Europeans have been doing in the last 3000 years, we should be apologising for the next 3000 years before giving moral lessons”. While there is truth in what he says, there are undeniable and problematic flaws in the comment.

Europe has had its fair share of moral wrongdoings: Racism, sexism, homophobia; we’ve denied refugees and immigrants; we’ve tried to continuously force religion on others; and we’ve definitely had enough wars to go around. In this, Infantino is correct that Europe is not, by any means, a rule following angel. Because of this, I can see how it might seem unfair for everybody to be cutting Qatar to bits for doing what many others have done/been doing. I also recognise that many people have entered the echo-chamber of blame, and have been blaming and chastising Qatar without any thought or understanding of the actual situation.

The FIFA president is not in the wrong there

The problem lies in the fact that Infantino is basically saying: ‘because Europe has made mistakes in the past, they cannot criticise or give advice to help Qatar avoid making the same mistakes’. When we think of hypocrisy, we might always think of it as being a bad thing. But the truth is, we can't avoid it. It comes up more often than you might think, and it’s extremely important. 

Let’s look at a couple of examples. A person, when they were younger, used to always do something stupid like standing in front of a train until the last second. Then one day they got hurt very badly – maybe permanently – and they learnt to not do it again. Now they’re a parent, and their kid wants to do something similarly dangerous. The parent is not going to let them do it, and will tell them off for doing it, even though that would be hypocrisy. 

On a larger and more historical scale, if a country decided to pick up slavery, and, for example, Europe or the U.S.A decided to criticise them for it, that would technically be hypocrisy. But would it not be the right thing to do? Hypocrisy is inevitable in learning and helping others learn. We, as the human race, have recognised the obvious flaws in slavery, and have moved past it. So, when someone decides it’s a good idea, it is everyone else's job to criticise them, regardless of whether the critic has made the same bad decision in the past.

Essentially, we, as humans, need to learn from mistakes and wrongdoings. If people who have made mistakes can’t correct others, then who will correct them and how will we progress? Someone needs to set misled people back on track. The whole world should feel free to set Europe straight if we make a mistake.