In a speech on the eve of the World Cup, Infantino accused the west of being hypocritical.
Infantino was supposed to give a 45 minute Q&A with the media in Doha before the opening game, but instead he gave a monologue that lasted almost an hour.
The build-up to the World Cup has been overshadowed by the treatment of LGBTQ+ people and the deaths of migrant workers, but Infantino said critics were not in a position to teach moral lessons to people.
Infantino had strong feelings today. I feel Arab, African, gay, and disabled today.
I am not gay, I am not African, and I am not disabled. I know what it's like to be discriminated against in a foreign country. I was bullied when I was a child because I had red hair and freckles. I went to cry in my room.
I sympathize with the staff of the supreme committee. They would like to deliver here. The sign on my jacket is from the soccer team. The World Cup is going to be great. The country ofQatar is prepared.
In order to help and give a future to their families back home, hundreds of thousands of women and men from developing countries want to offer their services abroad. They are being offered this opportunity byQatar. In their home country, they earn less than what they earn here.
We should apologize for what we've been doing around the world for the next 3000 years.
How many of these European or Western business companies that make a lot of money in the Middle East have addressed the rights of migrant workers?
If you change the legislation it will mean less profit. We did and we generated less than any of these companies.
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Infantino responded to the reports of fans being paid to support different countries.
He said that the World Cup isn't a war. People who have a lot of problems want to attend the World Cup. The city is gorgeous. The people are happy to be together.
They were happy when the teams came and they went to see them. People who look like Indians should not cheer for England. Is that?
Can someone who looks like an Indian not cheer for their favorite team? You're aware of what this is. This is racist. Everyone in the world has the right to cheer for whoever they please.
The Sky Sports News senior reporter is in the Middle East.
He didn't say something that was offensive or misleading. I have never heard anything like this before.
Infantino, you don't know what it's like to be gay, you don't know what it's like to be disabled, and you don't know what it's like to be black. You can't just say you feel what they're feeling.
It's probably even more amazing that he is being re-elected after being able to say things like this. He's taking the fact that millions of people who have nothing and are brought to do what human rights groups call modern slavery, is ok because they get paid more than they do at home.
It is damaging to the cause to try to get better rights, better conditions for these workers to try and improve the human rights situation here.
I don't think Infantino is capable of speaking about hypocrisy. I don't think whataboutism is the right way to try and enforce change in a sport organization.
"If we all get stuck on what's happened before or what's happening elsewhere, we won't bring about any effective change." We are here for the World Cup and on the eve of it, this is what we are getting.
"He says it will be the best World Cup in history, I think this will be the World Cup that really underpins what's going on in the game."
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Sky Sports News has a reporter in the Middle East.
The performance from Infantino was very strange. At times it seemed like he had developed a Messiah complex when he was saying ridiculous things. After flying around the world, meeting a lot of head of states, and acting as if they are a head of state, the problem is that the president of the world's largest soccer organization starts to think that he is also a head of state.
He sounded like he was talking to Donald Trump. It almost seemed like he was trying to stoke tensions between Europe and the rest of the world when he came out with some of the things he was saying.
If we had microphones, we would have interrupted him during the speech to correct some of the mistruths he was saying. One of the most extraordinary press conferences I have ever seen was that one.
Many of the migrant workers who have built the stadiums and infrastructure were getting paid as little as $1 an hour often to work and live. I was not sure what I was listening to.
It's not right to compare being bullied at school to living and working in the conditions some of the migrant workers have had to live and work in.
He said that he felt gay. When he is in a country where being gay is against the law, it is criminalised and the World Cup is going to be held there, it's not right.
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