Soccer's top officials have urged the 32 teams preparing for the most political World Cup in the modern era to focus on the game in Qatar and avoid handing out lessons in morality. (More Football News)
A letter urging teams to “let football take center stage” was sent by FIFA president Gianni Infantino and secretary general Fatma Samoura ahead of intense media focus on coaches and players when World Cup squads are announ🦹ced next week.
“Please, let's now focus on the football!” Infantino and Samoura wrote, asking the 32 soccer federations to “not al💃low football to be dragged int🧜o every ideological or political battle that exists.”
Qatar being picked in 2010 as World Cup host sparked scrutiꦛny on its treatment of low-paid migrant workers needed to build projects costing tens of billions of dollars and its laws criminalizing same-sex relationships.
Eight European teams have committed to their captains wearing heart-shaped armbands — in breach of FIFA rules — to support an🐷 anti-discrimination campaign.
Several coaches and federat🍨ions have backed calls to create a compensation fund for migrant workers' families. Denmark's squꩵad is taking a black team jersey as a sign of “mourning” for those who died in Qatar.
🔜Iran has also faced calls to be removed before it plays England in the second game of theꦿ World Cup on Nov. 21 in a group that also includes the United States.
Iranian fan groups want the federation s🐈uspended for discriminating against women, and U༒kraine soccer officials asked FIFA to remove Iran from the World Cup for human rights violations and supplying the Russian military with weapons.
“We 🐲know football does not live in a vacuum and we are equally aware༒ that there are many challenges and difficulties of a political nature all around the world,” the FIFA leaders wrote in their letter Thursday that did not address or identify any specific issue.
“At FIFA, we try to respect all opinions and belꦺiefs, without handing out moral lessons to the rest of the world. One of the great strengths of the world is indeed its very diversity, and if inclusion means anything, it means having respect for that diversity.
Infantino and Samouღra added: “No one people or culture or nation is 'better' than any other. This princi♎ple is the very foundation stone of mutual respect and non-discrimination. And this is also one of the core values of football.
They repeated long-standing promises made by Qatar, including by its Emir at the United Nations general assembly in New York in September, that all visitors to Qatar will be welcome “regardless of oಌrigin, background, religion, gender, sexual orie♔ntation or nationality.”
About 1.2ꦓ million international visitors are expected in Qat♛ar during the Nov. 20-Dec. 18 tournament.
