At the start of the FIFA World Cup, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, gave a long speech about an hour before the opening match, where he mentioned, among other things, our country.
Qatar has faced a barrage of criticism since 2010, when it was chosen by FIFA to host the world's biggest soccer tournament. Reports have documented that migrant workers who built Qatar's World Cup stadiums often worked long hours in harsh conditions and faced discrimination and other abuses. Qatar has also often been criticized for laws that criminalize homosexuality, restrict some freedoms for women and do not offer citizenship to migrants.
In his speech, Infantino criticized European countries for double standards. "How many homosexuals were prosecuted in Europe?" he said, repeating earlier comments that European countries had similar laws until recent generations. "Sorry, it was a process. We seem to forget.” He recalled that in one region of Switzerland, women had the right to vote only in the 1990s.
Infantino scolded European and North American countries for not opening their doors to Afghan girls who tried to leave the country last year. Here he mentioned the example of Albania:
"Thanks to Qatar's help, we were able to rescue more than 160 girls and women, most of them from Afghanistan. We did this because we were promised by many countries in the West before we took them out that they would of course welcome them. 160, not 1,600 or 16,000. I believe we were promised this because they believed we wouldn't be able to get them out of the country. But as soon as we got them out of the country, thanks to the help of Qatar, we brought them to Doha and they were staying in one of the complexes built for the World Cup, all the European and American and North American countries closed their doors. [We were told] 'no, we're sorry', 'we can't', 'we can't'. The only country that said 'OK, bring them here, because we know what it means to suffer and run away from your country' was Albania. My friend Edi Rama said, 'They are welcome in Albania, where they can build a future'. So Albania opened its doors, of all countries, Albania opened its doors to Afghan refugees who had to flee because they played football in Afghanistan."
