FIFA President Gianni Infantino said that the FIFA World Cup 2022 will bring people together for one month and help dispel some of the misconceptions that still exist about the Middle East. Speaking by video to the sixth edition of the Future Investment Initiative (FII6) in Riyadh, he described the progress of women’s football in Saudi Arabia as “absolutely fantastic” and said that FIFA would continue with its quest to make football truly global. “This FIFA World Cup 2022 is already having a huge impact on the Middle East,” he said, adding that the tournament, which starts on 20 November and ends on December 18 would provide millions of people with the chance to discover a new part of the world.

“It is also an opportunity for Qatar and the whole Gulf region to present itself to the world in another light and get rid, once and for all, of some of the prejudice that sadly exists,” he said. “It will definitely help to get more mutual understanding between people of different cultures and backgrounds, I am convinced of that.” Gianni Infantino said that FIFA had received a record 23 million ticket requests for the FIFA World Cup and that 3 million tickets had been sold. “We will have two million people coming from all over the world and showing the world that humanity can live in peace together,” he said. He praised the progress of women’s football in Saudi Arabia, where the women’s national team played its first-ever matches this year and which has also staged a national women’s league for the first time.

Following the FIFA World Cup, he said that FIFA would continue its efforts to make football truly global. “Football is not the exclusive property of a few, it is the world sport and we need to make it grow all over the world,” he said. “We need to organise more competitions, more events all over the world...in some parts of the world there is maybe too much football, in other parts there is not enough top football.” The FII is an international investment and innovation forum attracting several thousand policymakers, investors and academics from across the globe. This year's conference was held under the theme "Investing in Humanity: Enabling a New Global Order."