Those were the passionate words of Gianni Infantino on the eve of the kickoff of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. But FIFA’s president wasn’t talking about persistent reports of exploitation and unsafe working conditions afflicting the country’s huge migrant worker population, or the well-documented allegations of corruption in the process by which the small Persian Gulf state was awarded hosting rights to this tournament.
No, Infantino was referring to the criticism of Qatar and FIFA, as he mounted a defiant, accusatory defense of both in an hour-long monologue at the start of a press conference at the World Cup media centre on Doha’s outskirts.
“Today I have very strong feelings. 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. And I feel 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,” began Infantino, referring to widespread critical reporting around this World Cup.
shut up.
________________________________
The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them. ~ Ida B. Wells ________________________________
A U.S. journalist said he was briefly detained on Monday when he tried to enter a World Cup stadium in Qatar while wearing a rainbow shirt in support of the LGBTQ community in a country where same-sex relations are illegal.
Grant Wahl, a former Sports Illustrated journalist who now has his own website, said World Cup security denied him entry to the United States' opener against Wales at the Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan and asked him to take his shirt off.
He said his phone was taken away when he tweeted about the incident.
[snip][end]
Wear rainbow shirt, get detained.
"Don't believe every quote attributed to people on the Internet" -- Abraham Lincoln
The enforcement seems spotty and dependent on who's playing. Some people have tweeted photos of themselves in the stadiums with rainbow shirts on. Of course, we don't know what happened afterwards. They might have ultimately met the same fate.
At least twitter is still good for something.
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
Budweiser will ship the beer they have in Qatar but can't sell to the country that wins the World Cup.
Qatar’s last-minute decision to ban alcohol at World Cup stadiums has left Budweiser with loads of beer left on its hands. The company has an innovative solution to offload it.
Budweiser will ship the unsold Buds to the country that wins the tournament, the company said in a tweet. The company confirmed the plans in a statement to CNN Business, writing that it “wants to bring this celebration from the FIFA World Cup stadiums to the winning country’s fans.”
“We will host the ultimate championship celebration for the winning country. Because, for the winning fans, they’ve taken the world. More details will be shared when we get closer to the finals,” an Anheuser-Busch InBev spokesperson said in a statement.
AB InBev paid $75 million for the FIFA sponsorship, according to multiple reports. So, the decision threw a wrench into the company’s World Cup marketing plans, as the decision dramatically reduces its presence for thousands of fans at the World Cup. However, arguably the bigger part — its TV advertisements with football royalty Lionel Messi and Neymar Jr. — aren’t affected. https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/22/business ... index.html
From being stationed in Germany and England, twice, the citizens of those countries don't consider Budweiser and most American beers to be real beer so good luck, Budweiser, in that plan.
Number6 wrote: ↑Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:26 pm
Budweiser will ship the beer they have in Qatar but can't sell to the country that wins the World Cup.
From being stationed in Germany and England, twice, the citizens of those countries don't consider Budweiser and most American beers to be real beer so good luck, Budweiser, in that plan.
Remember the old Monty Python joke about American beer being like making love in a canoe?
It's effing close to water.
Glennfs wrote: ↑Sat Nov 19, 2022 7:28 am
But you don't hate our country right
Can you name me a country on the continent of Africa that has a better record on human rights that the USA.
You know Africa the continent where they sold your ancestors into bondage
^niggerbaiting.
It would never cross this person's mind to ask this of anyone else here who criticizes his violent white-conservative lifestyle.
________________________________
The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them. ~ Ida B. Wells ________________________________
Africa's present miserable human rights record is not relevant to this discussion, given the contamination of that unfortunate continent by other "civilizations" which saw it as a backwater ripe for exploitation of various types.
Before the European colonial empires finished the job of dividing up the continent, there were the Arabs and others, not to mention various homespun tribal conquests, and an early version of climate change, especially in the Sahel. One generalizes about Africa at great peril, because these generalizations are nearly always wrong. It's a complex place with a lot of history that you have been kept ignorant of.
Anyway, Qatar is nowhere near Africa. It's on the Persian Gulf. What's Qatar's excuse? Allah wanted them to have all the oil so they could create a dynastic fiefdom with a grungy post-British Kipling era White Man's Burden overlay that became a playground for billionaire robber barons built with forced migrant labor?
"We must remember that we cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation." --Liz Cheney, Republican, 7/21/22
carmenjonze wrote: ↑Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:18 pm
^niggerbaiting.
It would never cross this person's mind to ask this of anyone else here who criticizes his violent white-conservative lifestyle.
Disgusting comments coming from that white supremacist. Notice the anger is increasing, watch how bad they get when their fascist jackboot friends take over the House.
ZoWie wrote: ↑Sun Nov 27, 2022 1:18 pm
Africa's present miserable human rights record is not relevant to this discussion, given the contamination of that unfortunate continent by other "civilizations" which saw it as a backwater ripe for exploitation of various types.
Before the European colonial empires finished the job of dividing up the continent, there were the Arabs and others, not to mention various homespun tribal conquests, and an early version of climate change, especially in the Sahel. One generalizes about Africa at great peril, because these generalizations are nearly always wrong. It's a complex place with a lot of history that you have been kept ignorant of.
Anyway, Qatar is nowhere near Africa. It's on the Persian Gulf. What's Qatar's excuse? Allah wanted them to have all the oil so they could create a dynastic fiefdom with a grungy post-British Kipling era White Man's Burden overlay that became a playground for billionaire robber barons built with forced migrant labor?
Well..the remark really had nothing to do with Africa. It was n-word baiting, straight up.
________________________________
The way to right wrongs is to
Shine the light of truth on them. ~ Ida B. Wells ________________________________