FIFA president Gianni Infantino has bizarrely hailed the ‘joyful atmosphere’ of the Qatar World Cup despite concerns over the deaths of migrant workers – as he called it ‘the best World Cup ever.
Infantino – who has been living in Qatar for the last year – was fielding questions from the media at a press conference as this year’s tournament comes to a close ahead of Sunday’s final between France and Argentina – with the chief asked about discrimination and human rights in the country.
One of the main topics of discussion was about the amount of workers who had died in the build-up to the World Cup while building stadiums and infrastructure and the conflicting figures about those who had been killed.
FIFA president Gianni Infantino has hailed the ‘joyful atmosphere’ of the Qatar World Cup
He said FIFA wanted to ‘defend human rights’ despite concerns over migrant worker deaths
Multiple reports have claimed that thousands of migrant workers have died since the beginning of construction for the tournament.
But despite the outcry, Infantino hailed the tournament as ‘the best World Cup ever’, adding: ‘[There was] a joyful atmosphere … people coming together, maybe forgetting some of their issues, and having pleasure.
‘As you know it’s been an incredible success. We are approaching the 5bn mark [for TV viewers]. We had 3.27m spectators (in the stadiums) … we played 62 matches without incidents.’
He also said the organisation wanted to ‘defend human rights’ – as he responded to a question asking why FIFA had banned players wearing the OneLove armband – which was a stand against discrimination – in Qatar.
Multiple reports have claimed that thousands of workers have died during the construction of stadiums for the tournament in Qatar
Infantino said he wanted to allow fans to focus on football by banning the OneLove armband that was set to be worn by England captain Harry Kane
‘Honestly, I believe we are defending human rights, rights of everyone in the World Cup. I also believe those fans come to the stadium and watching on TV – everyone has their own problems. They just want to spend 90 minutes without having to think about anything other than a moment of joy and emotion, that’s what we have to do.’
When asked directly about worker deaths, Infantino added: ‘Every person dying is one person too many… it’s a tragedy, for everyone. We have to be very precise about the figures and attentive to how we portray that. For me and for us, every loss of life is a tragedy. Everything we could do to protect the workers, we did it.’
Infantino then confirmed FIFA’s ambitious expansion plans – including increasing the amount of teams in the Club World Cup to 32 – despite opposition from teams, as well as raising the amount of sides in the 2026 World Cup to 48 and the reveal of a FIFA World Series concept.
Infantino also insisted FIFA were prioritising player welfare, despite confirming expansion plans for a number of tournaments
However, he later claimed that FIFA were focused on protecting player welfare, despite fears that players will end up playing too many matches and suffer burnout.
‘We have to take into consideration the health and wellbeing of players,’ he added. ‘We need to ensure there is a rest period for players, a holiday period, ideally 72 hours between games. Of course we need to be pragmatic on these topics. We will now consult on all these topics and elaborate.’
It comes after Sportsmail exclusively revealed this week that Europe’s biggest clubs had rejected a proposal from FIFA to launch a new Club World Cup.
But in what can be likened to FIFA’s own ‘Super League’, Infantino said: ‘It will be a Club World Cup of 32 teams, every four years, and the first edition will be summer of 2025. They will be the best teams in the world invited to participate.’
Infantino said today that the 2023 Club World Cup will be held in Morocco in February next year and will feature teams, including Real Madrid after they became European champions with a victory over Liverpool in May.
FIFA have gone ahead with the plans to increase the amount of teams competing in the Club World Cup to 32 – despite clubs refusing to agree to it earlier this week
The FIFA president admitted that he has to revisit the format for the 2026 World Cup which has had much controversy over the 16 groups of three concept.
‘I have to say after this World Cup, and the success of the groups of four, we have to revisit or rediscuss the format whether we go for 16 groups of three or 12 groups of four,’ he said.
Infantino also later announced a ‘FIFA World Series’ concept is being created with friendly tournaments between four teams from different continents in the March international windows in even years.
The president, who revealed a number of decisions from a FIFA council meeting, announced that the hosts for the men’s World Cup in 2030 will be decided in 2024 and the women’s World Cup for 2031 will be decided in 2025.
Infantino confirmed that he can be FIFA president until 2031, saying that he can run three terms in charge. He said his second term will begin on March 16.
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