The World Cup in Qatar and hypocrisy

The surprise call for a press conference on Saturday, 24 hours before the start of the World Cup that began yesterday Sunday, by the FIFA president was out of the program but it was definitely disconcerting.

Gianni Infantino's speech can only be understood as FIFA's response (whose opacity led to the suspension of its last two presidents for alleged corruption) to the pressure from the Qatari authorities in the face of the barrage of criticism that the country has received as the organizer of the event.

Infantino's common thread was an attack on the hypocrisy of the European countries that attend the World Cup and are at the same time critical of a country with serious deficiencies in human rights and working conditions.

Dissent is the natural space of liberal democracies and is one of its virtuous conditions.

Sometimes, as in this case, that freedom places democratic societies at a contradictory crossroads.

Is criticism of Qatar legitimate at the same time that the West sends numerous delegations and a multitude of informants to cover each game and each incident?

Would Western societies have accepted the boycott of a World Cup due to the non-compliance of the host country's human rights when World Cups have been held in States with even worse conditions?

The now moralistic and overacted reaction is out of place, but it is understandable and desirable that the most advanced democracies in terms of human rights issue criticism of a regime where homosexuals are not the main victims of serious violations of rights (prohibited) but that 25 04% of the population are women, all under the guardianship of a man and with no trace of rights comparable to a liberal democracy.

The obvious inconsistency of organizing a World Cup where there is no soccer tradition, nor were there stadiums until they were built, nor suitable climatic conditions, collides with other evidence.

Qatar knew how to better handle its cards in the negotiation, whatever they were, and the competition to organize it.

The visible paralysis of the American delegation in 2010 —the clear favorite to win the election to host the World Cup— at the moment of designating the host country expresses in a very graphic way the stupefaction that the rest of the planet experienced at this FIFA decision.

Censoring legitimate and even forced criticism of Qatar coexists with a powerful sports industry with a lot of money at stake: the most mobilized societies against Qatar's deficiencies are preparing, at the same time, to attend on television one of the biggest sporting events that exist.

The assumption of its contradictions is part of adulthood in democratic societies.

Censoring legitimate and even forced criticism of Qatar coexists with a powerful sports industry with a lot of money at stake: the most mobilized societies against Qatar's deficiencies are preparing, at the same time, to attend on television one of the biggest sporting events that exist.

The assumption of its contradictions is part of adulthood in democratic societies.

Censoring legitimate and even forced criticism of Qatar coexists with a powerful sports industry with a lot of money at stake: the most mobilized societies against Qatar's deficiencies are preparing, at the same time, to attend on television one of the biggest sporting events that exist.

The assumption of its contradictions is part of adulthood in democratic societies.