KEIR RADNEDGE in DOHA —- Gianni Infantino came to the FIFA presidency in 2016, six years after Qatar had been awarded hosting rights to the World Cup finals now drawing to a close.

No matter his stance in a prior role as general secretary of European federation UEFA, he has been a loyal promoter and enabler for FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. From that platform it was a happy president who reviewed the positives of the past four weeks.

Infantino kicked off his closing press conference by thanking the Qatari state, the organisers and volunteers for “the unique cohesive power” which had made “this World Cup the best World Cup ever.”

Gianni Infantino: mission accomplished

As evidence he offered a ream of statistics and accomplishments.

Infantino pointed to 3.27m spectators compared with 3.03 for 2018, an average attendance of 52,760 compared with 47,000 in Russia, a cumulative attendance of 1.7m at the FIFA Fan Festival to enjoy 62 matches “without incidents and in a very joyful atmosphere.”

Some 2.3m fans from around the world had applied for the Hayya card entry permit with 1.9m approved, and the largest foreign contingents of supporters coming from Saudi Arabia, UAE, United States, United Kingdom and Mexico. TV viewing figures were already approaching 5bn.

Equalising trends had been evidence on the pitch where “no team have won all their games and, for the first time, teams of all five continents have moved to the knockout phase with an African team [Morocco] for the first time reaching the semi-finals.”

Positivity

This was not all. Infantino pointed out that, for the first time, a woman in Stephanie Frappart of France, had refereed a match at the finals “and she did very well.”

Infantino concluded with a positive take after pre-event negativity by saying: “We have seen some exceptionally competitive games, some surprises, some great goals. The fact of playing in November and December as opposed to the end of an exhausting season has had an impact.

“Football has been uniting the world and allowing people to forget some of their issues and have pleasure . . . if there is one thing this World Cup has shown us it is that when people come together around football it is extremely joyful.”

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