FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s victimhood doesn’t wash, it’s just narcissism - Bill Carmichael

The Swiss-born bureaucrat raved: “We have been taught many lessons from Europeans and the Western World. I am European. For what we have been doing for 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologising for the next 3,000 years before giving moral lessons.”

As a piece of “whataboutery” this is an absolute classic. Apparently, we are not allowed to criticise Qatar’s terrible treatment of gay people and migrant workers because of something that happened thousands of years ago.

Seriously, someone needs to buy Infantino a history book. Europe, as we know it today, or anything resembling a modern nation state, didn’t even exist 3,000 years ago. Then, around the year 1000 BC, our Bronze Age ancestors were doing mysterious things at Stonehenge, and I am sure the idea of “Western guilt” would have completely baffled them.

But once I’d stopped laughing at these preposterous ramblings I looked again at his speech and realised it was very revealing, because it contains many of the common tropes in modern western thought.

Take for example the ridiculous cult of competitive victimhood. Everyone is desperate to be a victim these days, including rich and privileged people like Mr Infantino.

They do this because, remarkably, claiming to be a victim, and pretending to be offended by anything and everything, actually elevates your social standing.

That is why we have posh Cambridge graduates climbing up gantries over the M25 and sobbing into their mobile phones: “I don’t have a future.” They are victims too, you see. Everyone craves victimhood.

But Mr Infantino took this idea to a new hilarious extreme. He said: “Of course I am not Qatari, Arab, African, gay, disabled or a migrant worker. But I feel like them because I know what it means to be discriminated against and bullied as a foreigner in a foreign country.

“As a child I was bullied because I had red hair and freckles.”

Yes, that’s right, Gianni. Being teased over a few freckles is exactly the same as being an exploited migrant slaving in the broiling heat for a mere pittance.

Perhaps when Mr Infantino has finished ruining football he can start a new pressure group – the Ginger Liberation Army.

Linked to this is the incredible narcissism of the modern world, fuelled in the main by dead-end identity politics. Again the environmental protesters spring to mind. They are not really interested in the planet or global warming. They just want to talk about themselves – my future, what it means to me.

Mr Infantino displayed a very similar trait. He could have talked about football, which would be a refreshing change from someone who worked for FIFA. Or about the players, or migrant workers and what is being done to improve their conditions, or about gay rights. But no, instead, he has to place himself at the centre of the action, and there’s little room for anything else.

But perhaps the most striking and familiar theme in Mr Infantino’s speech was his evident hatred of the West. This self-loathing is very common in “progressive” circles. Everything the West does is bad, and everything enemies of the West do is good.

That’s why over the years many on the Left have supported monsters such as Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Kim Il Sung and Pol Pot. Today many are apologists for atrocities committed by Vladimir Putin, Basher al-Assad, Iran and terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

What does Mr Infantino want us to apologise for? Abolishing slavery (which still exists in many parts of the Middle East and Africa)? Defeating fascism and communism? Building some of the most prosperous, peaceful and tolerant countries the world has ever seen?

Normally, I find vacuous virtue signalling of filthy rich footballers – taking the knee, fancy armbands etc. – tedious.

But there was one gesture this week that was very powerful. Before their match against England the Iranian team refused to sing their national anthem, apparently in solidarity with the women-led protests back home, which have seen more than 360 people, including 56 children, murdered by the regime.

The players know they could face horrible reprisals when they return, but went ahead with their protest anyway. Now that’s what you call courage.