{"id":261070,"date":"2026-01-24T05:42:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T05:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/261070\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T05:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T05:42:11","slug":"infantino-joke-about-british-fans-not-helpful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/261070\/","title":{"rendered":"Infantino joke about British fans not ‘helpful’"},"content":{"rendered":"

FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s joke about British fans\u2019 behaviour at the Qatar World Cup was “neither helpful nor accurate”, the UK\u2019s football policing lead has said.<\/p>\n

Infantino aimed a jibe at British supporters during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, saying the Qatar finals in 2022 were special because “no Brit was arrested”.<\/p>\n

Chief Constable Mark Roberts, the football policing lead for the National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council, told the Press Association: “Whilst these things may be said in jest, it is neither helpful or accurate to make this sort of comment.<\/p>\n

“For the record, ‘British\u2019 fans behaving at World Cups is the norm, not something special.<\/p>\n

“In Qatar (there were) no arrests of English or Welsh fans, in Russia \u2013 three England fans were arrested for very minor offences. (In) Brazil \u2013 15 arrests \u2013 of which seven were touts \u2013 and South Africa (saw) seven arrests for minor matters.”<\/p>\n

\"AL
\nEngland were knocked out by France in the 2022 World Cup quarter-finals<\/p>\n

Infantino spoke about the Qatar World Cup as he sought to allay fears around the staging of this summer\u2019s finals in North America, in particular the United States where domestic tensions are high.<\/p>\n

He said there had been “a lot of critics” of the Qatar finals, but added: “When the ball started rolling and the magic started, we had virtually no incidents.<\/p>\n

“For the first time in history also, no Brit was arrested during a World Cup. Imagine! This is something really, really special.”<\/p>\n

The Football Supporters\u2019 Association said on Thursday that Infantino should focus on providing cheap tickets, rather than making cheap jokes at fans\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n

FIFA has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s joke about British fans\u2019 behaviour at the Qatar World Cup was “neither helpful nor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-261070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}