Africa We Want

FIFA: Rwanda’s genocide recovery inspired my first election win - Infantino

‘What this country has suffered and how this country came back up is inspiring for the entire world,’ Gianni Infantino said in Kigali. FIFA President Gianni Infantino won his 2016 election also by being inspired by Rwanda’s recovery after the genocide in 1994. By Ali Walker

FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Thursday said his 2016 election win was partly inspired by Rwanda’s recovery after the genocide in 1994.

During a speech at FIFA’s Congress in Kigali, Rwanda, Infantino said that he was weighing pulling out of the election race — before a visit to Rwanda’s genocide memorial changed his mind.

Infantino said that on a previous trip to Rwanda for a football tournament sometime before the 2016 vote an unidentified official told him that, “we really love you, but we’re not going to support you.”

The Swiss-Italian football boss was on the brink of throwing in the towel when he recalled a visit to the memorial.

“I said, who I am to give up,” Infantino said. “What this country has suffered and how this country came back up is inspiring for the entire world.”

“So I certainly couldn’t give up because someone was telling me something,” he added. “I stayed, I attended the match, I continued to campaign … I was elected FIFA president.”

In 1994, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus died in a brutal 100-day genocide in Rwanda, carried out by the Hutu majority government and militias.

Infantino was reelected unopposed for a new term as FIFA president Thursday.

Author: MANZI
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