This Sunday, December 18, Argentina and France will play each other in the Qatar World Cup final. Millions of fans around the world will tune in for the game. Therefore, Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, hoped to take advantage of such exposure and asked FIFA to broadcast a message in the run-up to the game. However, the event organizers reportedly rejected his request.
The Qatar World Cup has been politically charged from the beginning: from various European nations, such as Germany and Denmark speaking out about human rights violations in the host country, as well as the controversy surrounding the Iranian national team for supporting the protests in their country against Ali Khamenei’s regime.
Decisions taken concerning FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022™ qualifiers: https://t.co/pZ33iJZsI1 pic.twitter.com/PRwCZE5jJW
— FIFA Media (@fifamedia) March 8, 2022
It seems that Gianni Infantino, FIFA president, does not want any more political spats and objected to Zelensky using the World Cup final as a platform to talk about the conflict in his country. The same organization banned Russia from participating in any of its competitions, both at club and national level, until further notice.
Zelensky, who has spoken out on multiple platforms since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, seeks to keep the war on the front burner and continues to press for financial and military support from NATO and other Western countries (a key factor for its survival so far). "We thought FIFA wanted to use its platform for the common good," a source close to the Ukrainian president told CNN.
