Gianni Infantino launches explosive tirade against Western critics on eve of

Doha, Qatar
CNN
 — 

On the eve of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, FIFA President Gianni Infantino launched a tirade against Western critics of the controversial tournament in an explosive hour-long monologue.

Infantino, the boss of world soccer’s governing body, looked on glumly as he addressed hundreds of journalists in Doha, Qatar, Saturday.

“We are taught many lessons from Europeans, from the Western world,” he said, referring to criticisms of Qatar’s human rights record.

“What we Europeans have been doing for the last 3000 years, we should be apologizing for the next 3000 years before starting to give moral lessons.”

Despite the opening match kicking off on November 20, Infantino barely spoke about soccer and focused his attention on what he called the “hypocrisy” of Western criticism.

In a remarkable press conference, Infantino seemed exhausted. He has spent a lot of time defending FIFA’s decision in 2010 to award the World Cup to Qatar. A controversial decision made when he wasn’t the governing body’s president.

This tournament will be a historic event, the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, but is also mired in controversy, with much of the build-up focusing on human rights, from the death of migrant workers and the conditions many have endured in Qatar, to LGBTQ and women’s rights.

Infantino, despite admitting things weren’t perfect, said some criticism was “profoundly unjust” and accused the West of double standards.

The Italian opened the news conference by speaking for an hour, telling journalists that he knew what it felt like to be discriminated against, saying he was bullied as a child for having red hair and freckles.

“Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker,” he said, in front of a stunned audience.

“I feel this, all this, because what I’ve been seeing and what I’ve been told, since I don’t read, otherwise I would be depressed I think.

“What I’ve seen brings me back to my personal story. I am a son of migrant workers. My parents were working very very hard in difficult situations.”

Infantino said progress had been made in Qatar on a range of issues, but insisted real change took time, adding that FIFA would not leave the country after the tournament finished. He suggested that he thought some Western journalists would forget about the issues.

“We need to invest in education, to give them a better future, to give them hope. We should all educate ourselves,” he said.

“Reform and change takes time. It took hundreds of years in our countries in Europe. It…