FIFA President Gianni Infantino has for the first time publicly responded to a call to disqualify the Iranian national football team from the World Cup, which kicks off tomorrow in Qatar.
“It is not the regime that plays football. It’s about teams. If we listened [к критикам], we would have created even more division rather than unity. There are 80 million people in Iran. Are they all bad people? No. There are 60 million people in England. Are they all bad? Obviously not”.
“FIFA is not the UN, we are not the world police, we are not the blue helmets (the nickname of the UN peacekeepers). The only weapon we have is the ball. We should try to dialogue and talk. Sometimes it is. Because the mode is not playing. There are two soccer teams. We must have reasons to bring people together. The fact that they can play in the world tournament is good news. There are 80 million people in Iran. Are all people in England good? We will fight,” Infantino said.
Earlier, a number of reputable Iranian personalities, including legendary former Persian Leopards football player Ali Daei, called on FIFA to disqualify the Iranian national team from the 2022 World Cup for violating human rights celebrated in this country.
Infantino not so long ago called for a month [пока будет идти чемпионат мира в Катаре] stop the Russian-Ukrainian warand also expressed the opinion that “Europeans must apologize for the next three thousand years before teaching people morality”.
