Former Portsmouth and Crystal Palace man savages FIFA and Infantino in World Cup takedown
Gianni Infantino and football’s governing body have been subjected to a searing verbal assault over being Donald Trump’s World Cup lapdogs - from a former Fratton man.
Former Pompey midfielder Craig Foster has blasted FIFA for letting Donald Trump 'run roughshod' over the World Cup.
The man who turned out for the Blues in the 90s has dismantled the president of football’s governing body, Gianni Infantino, in a systematic takedown of his organisation of the game’s showpiece event.
The tournament is up and running in North America, but the competition has been beset with controversies over a number of different US-related issues.
Iran were allegedly told they had to leave the country and return to Mexico after their 2-2 draw with New Zealand, with their coach Amir Ghalenoei saying they are ‘oppressed’.
Meanwhile, Somalian referee Omar Otan was interrogated for 11 hours and refused entry because of an alleged ‘association with suspected members of terror organisations’.
Uruguay also dealt with security issues on their arrival to the tournament, which Foster likened to being ‘treated like criminals’.
Furthermore, the man who made 19 appearances for Pompey in the 1999-98 season when arriving from Australia, has highlighted the ‘hypercommercialism’ of the tournament, with three-minute drinks breaks to accommodate adverts drawing widespread flak.
Foster let rip at Infantino’s organisation and feels he’s acting as a patsy to US president Trump.
Speaking to Sky News, he said: ‘The US and Trump have that hegemonic power in the world and Infantino has sidled up to Trump and effectively him run the tournament in his own way.
‘This was supposed to be the first tournament which had a really rigorous human rights audit prior to the tournament, and FIFA would abide by that under their human rights policy.
‘Sadly since Qatar the process started and the council, but particularly Infantino, just completely disregarded the human rights policy they have and allowed the US to basically run roughshod over the tournament in every respect.
‘It’s been hypercommercialised and the fans are pretty upset about that.
‘Then we saw the Cape Verde goalkeeper after an extraordinary performance against Spain talk about the high cost of the visas to get in, he couldn’t even bring his mother in to watch.
‘We’ve seen what’s happened to the Iranian teams, the Somalian referee and various players.
‘There’s been the mistreatment of some teams when they arrived in the US, treated virtually like criminals while others were feted as superstars.
‘It’s this inequality across all the teams and the different standards applied to them which is so very disappointing,
‘Even in Qatar and Russia, countries the US in particular are critical of, they certainly didn’t do this.
‘Fans were allowed in and certain discriminatory rules were not applied, as with the LGBT+ law in Russia - but this is not the case with the US.
‘I think the world of football is aghast at how the tournament is being run, even as, as always, once the football starts we have our shirts on and are screaming.
‘We’re loving seeing the world come together, the world needs this right now and the pictures of everyone celebrating and breaking down barriers and stereotypes has been just been wonderful.
‘Sadly we need to get hold of how the tournament is run and particularly the US.’