Gianni Infantino said what Gianni Infantino was bound to say. “The best World Cup ever,” claimed a self-glorifying propagandist. For some, the Fifa president’s verdict is automatically invalid: the choice of Qatar as hosts, the corruption in the voting, the shift of the World Cup into winter, the death of thousands of migrant workers, the attempts to threaten anyone protesting about the lack of rights for the LGBTQ+ community, the fake attendance figures and the rampant dishonesty feel reasons to disqualify 2022.
But if, as Infantino prefers, we concentrate on the football, does it justify that lofty boast? After all, Russia’s tarnished, tainted tournament actually contained plenty of very good football. There are grounds for calling it one of the best; perhaps, then, Qatar is not even the best World Cup of the Infantino presidency.
