The top soccer administrators have advised the 32 teams preparing for the most politicised World Cup in modern history to concentrate on the game in Qatar and refrain from imparting moral lessons.
FIFA advises World Cup teams to focus sports above politics
Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, and Fatma Samoura, the secretary general, wrote a letter requesting that teams “let football take centre stage” before the World Cup lineups are revealed the next week, when there will be a lot of media attention on the coaches and players. “Let’s concentrate now on the football,” I said. In their letter, Infantino and Samoura urged the 32 soccer federations to “avoid dragging football into every existing ideological or political dispute.”
When Qatar was chosen to host the 2010 World Cup, concerns about how it treated the low-paid migrant workers who were needed to construct projects costing tens of billions of dollars were raised. Concerns also arose about its laws that make same-sex partnerships illegal.
In defiance of FIFA regulations and to promote an anti-discrimination campaign, eight European clubs have agreed that their leaders would wear armbands with hearts on them. Numerous federations and coaches have supported initiatives to establish a fund to provide compensation for the families of migrant workers. In “mourning” for those who perished in Qatar, Denmark’s team is wearing a black uniform.
The United States and Iran are both in the same World Cup group, and there have been requests for Iran to be eliminated before it faces England on November 21. As a result of Iran’s treatment of women, Iranian fan groups want the federation to be shut down, and FIFA has been requested to kick Iran out of the World Cup by Ukrainian soccer authorities and the Russian military due to its support of Iran’s human rights issues.