Soccer goalkeeper Schult criticizes “Infantino’s moral sermons”
Clear thoughts: Almuth Schult (right) with attacker Alexandra Popp
Those: pa/dpa/Sebastian Gollnow
In the dispute over the TV rights to the women’s soccer World Cup, Almuth Schult had criticized Fifa. Now the German national goalkeeper personalized her allegations. In the center is Gianni Infantino.
FSoccer national goalkeeper Almuth Schult (32) has reiterated her criticism of the world association Fifa because of the dispute over the award of TV rights for the World Cup taking place in the summer. She also referred to Fifa President Gianni Infantino on Bayerischer Rundfunk. “For me, the worst and the most unprofessional and the most immoral thing when Infantino talks about morality is to start such a process at such short notice and say: Suddenly we need money,” said Schult on Sunday evening.
“You could have sold the TV rights for this World Cup in Qatar in the run-up to the World Cup if you had wanted to,” added Schult. “Then I can’t understand moral sermons and sermons about respect from Infantino, because for me it’s disrespectful. That is not commensurate with the value that the sport has.”
Thoughtful: Almuth Schult dislikes Fifa’s behavior
Source: pa/Eibner press photo/Ulrich Scherba
At this point, it’s still unclear who will be televising the tournament from July 20 to August 20 in Australia and New Zealand. According to a “Kicker” report, the public TV stations offered five million euros for the broadcasting rights to the finals with 32 teams for the first time. Fifa demands twice as much. According to dpa information, the sums are slightly higher.
According to Schult, it was clearly too late to only start the process of selling six and a half months before the start of the tournament. In the case of Germany, the goalkeeper may suspect other reasons. “I don’t think FIFA was as enthusiastic as Germany presented itself in Qatar,” explained Schult, referring to the past men’s World Cup. However, she also complained that the numbers were “a bit unequal” compared to men’s football.
Football boss expects rainbow tie
There is also a different way of dealing with the rainbow armband, which is requested by several teams. In any case, the head of the Australian Football Association is optimistic that the players will be allowed to wear them at the Women’s World Cup. After “very good and significant” talks with the world association, he was “quite confident” in this regard, said James Johnson in an interview with the British Sunday newspaper “Observer”. He expects a solution to be found before the World Cup finals in Australia and New Zealand from July 20th to August 20th.
“We are in the middle of this process and are quite confident and optimistic that we will find a good solution in the end. A solution where the players have the opportunity to express themselves in certain areas, which makes the players happy, makes the host country happy and also makes Fifa happy,” Johnson said. When asked directly if he expected players to wear rainbow armbands at the tournament, he replied, “I think they will, yes.”
At the men’s World Cup in Qatar, there was a major controversy over the rainbow armband, which FIFA had banned. As a consequence of the quarrels about the One Love bandage, the German men’s selection returned to the black, red and gold bandage. The world association then announced that it would enter into dialogue with the associations.