(ATR) Gianni Infantino has taken a swipe at Sheikh Salman’s human rights pledge, suggesting he failed to protect Bahraini players caught up in the 2011 pro-democracy protests.
Salman announced on Friday he had signed a human rights commitment presented by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International and two other groups to all five FIFA presidential candidates. The Asian football chief removed specific references to World Cup hosts Russia and Qatar and discrimination against women and LGBT groups, saying he preferred "all-inclusive verbiage" covering all minorities and racism.
"For anyone that knows me or has followed my career at UEFA, I have lived my life based on the premise that actions speak louder than words," Infantino said in his letter to the human rights groups, seen by Around the Rings.
In a dig at allegations Salman was personally involved in helping to identify Bahraini athletes arrested and tortured in the 2011 protests, which he consistently denies, Infantino said: "It is a simple act to sign a ‘pledge’, yet the real test of a pledge and the character of the person signing it is in their concrete actions, not words."
The human rights groups asked FIFA candidates to take "six clear steps that will put FIFA on the road to ensuring its events do not cause or contribute to human rights abuses and corruption" if they become president.
Infantino said many of the pledges were part of his FIFA manifesto "Taking Football Forward", "in particular around governance, transparency, stakeholder engagement, more diversity at FIFA and a fully transparent bidding process for the FIFA World Cup".
"There is no question in my mind that FIFA has a clear responsibility to ensure that workers directly involved in the delivery of its tournaments should have their human rights protected," he said.
"During my time as general secretary of UEFA, I have taken very strong measures to combat all forms of discrimination and racism and there can be no doubt that UEFA is absolutely committed to the respect and promotion of human rights."
In his letter, Infantino also drew attention to UEFA’s commitments around Euro 2016, saying European football’s governing body supported the 10 principles of the global compact on human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption. "We have put in place eight operational pledges to deliver on this," he said.
Infantino took another dig at his fierce rival Salman when he committed to meeting with Human Rights Watch within a month taking over the top job in world football, if elected on Feb. 26.
"I believe that this approach of meeting face to face and having a constructive dialogue is more effective than simply signing a ‘pledge card’," he said.
Written by Mark Bisson
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