November 10 – Unsurprisingly, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) have pulled their weight behind Gianni Infantino’s highly controversial ‘shut-up-and-play’ message to the 32 World Cup finalists on the eve of the tournament.
In a brief statement, CAF president Patrice Motsepe said: “We recognize that football has over the years been an important tool for bringing together and uniting people from different races, language groups and religious backgrounds. The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is an important global sporting event that brings together people from different countries and Continents for the development and celebration of football worldwide and the advancement of humanity.”
A staunch ally of Infantino, Motsepe’s words and CAF’s stance is surprising only by the fact the fact that Motsepe and CAF weren’t the first to jump to salute their Zurich master.
CAF has become the third confederation to back Infantino’s eleventh-hour and highly contentious plea to the 32 World Cup countries. Previously, South America’s Conmebol and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) also said that it is now time to focus on football rather than to be dragged into political debates.
Infantino, who lives in Doha, once claiming that he had moved there to keep an eye on matters, moved to close ranks after World Cup hosts Qatar have been subjected to another barrage of criticism from international media.
From Rolling Stone in the United States to the Indian Express, media have been reporting intensely about the treatment of migrant workers and the LGBT community in the Gulf country in the final weeks leading up to the World Cup.
In 2010, Qatar landed the World Cup hosting rights as the first Arab country ever. Having first faced scrutiny over the way the bid was won, focus then on the host nation then switched to scrutiny of its labour laws, the high number of deaths on construction sites and the treatment of migrant workers.
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