FIFA president Gianni Infantino, on the eve of the World Cup in Mexico City: “Without Trump it wouldn’t have been possible to be here. I don’t regret anything, I’ve been organizing events for thirty years, certain problems are normal”
Iran, expensive tickets, visa problem. The prospect that, on Alessandro Del Piero’s proposal, the whole team will line up at the time of the anthem and not just the starting eleven. And a memory of Evaristo Beccalossi, the player he loved most as a young Inter fan. In Gianni Infantino’s conference, on the eve of the World Cup in Mexico City, there were no uncomfortable questions about the complaint against him presented to Michel Platini, while the Fifa number one responded to the one about the peace prize for Donald Trump: “I have an excellent relationship with him and, without Trump, it would have been impossible to organize a World Cup in the United States”. Infantino did not shy away from addressing the hot topics, speaking for over half an hour before the actual questions began.
joy iran
—
The three central themes for Infantino: Iran, tickets, visas. Iran, first of all. The president claims the success of having the Iranian national team at the World Cup: “I’m happy about it, I had been in Turkey to meet them and many were pessimistic. If necessary, I would have taken a bus to Tehran and accompanied them here. Their response was: ‘We will take the bus and, if necessary, we will drive ourselves’. They qualified. This is the spirit of football.”
dear tickets
—
“We have sold over 6 million to date – recalls Infantino – and there are always some on sale for the teams that pass the round, the 60 dollar one is the cheapest especially when compared to prices in the USA. Let me say something. Allow me to congratulate the mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York. He put a thousand tickets on sale for 50 dollars and since then he has received fantastic media coverage. We have put 130 thousand for sale at 60 dollars and not we received a lot of media coverage. He probably has a better communications team than us.” Infantino then recalled: “The demand was unprecedented, but not by little, ten times higher. The number of ticket requests we received was absolutely incredible.”
use and visas
—
Finally, visas, with the case of the Somali referee sent home: “What happened is unfortunate, but FIFA doesn’t control everything. Let’s try to deal with things calmly.” Despite the organizational problems in the USA, Infantino denied regretting this assignment: “I don’t regret anything. I’ve been organizing events for thirty years. I’m used to dealing with problems. These are normal things for events of this magnitude.”
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED