FIFA Secretary General Fatma Samoura said on Wednesday that Russia’s staging of the football World Cup had set the bar high for Qatar, the tournament’s next hosts in 2022.
“I feel for Qatar, because (Russia) has set the bar very, very high,” Samoura, referring to the next World Cup in four years’ time, said at a meeting with Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the upper house of Russia’s parliament.
Samoura asked Matviyenko to convey to Russian President Vladimir Putin FIFA’s “profound appreciation for everything that he has done to make it possible for the world to watch the beautiful game.”