{"id":17793,"date":"2023-03-16T16:36:02","date_gmt":"2023-03-16T16:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paulkagame.com\/?p=17793"},"modified":"2023-03-16T16:36:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T16:36:02","slug":"73rd-fifa-congress-keynote-address-by-president-kagame-kigali-16-march-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/?p=17793","title":{"rendered":"73rd FIFA Congress | Keynote Address by President Kagame | Kigali, 16 March 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A good morning to you all, and allow me to begin, by officially welcoming you to Rwanda.<\/p>\n

We are very happy to have you here.<\/p>\n

And I thank FIFA for choosing Rwanda as the host of this year\u2019s elective Congress.<\/p>\n

This is a great honour, even more so because you could have chosen to go elsewhere.<\/p>\n

To Qatar and FIFA, congratulations for organizing a successful World Cup last year. And to Argentina, congratulations to be the champions.<\/p>\n

It was one of the best tournaments in memory.<\/p>\n

Under the FIFA Forward Programme, and the exceptional leadership of Gianni Infantino, football is becoming a more inclusive global sport.<\/p>\n

I first got to know Gianni around eight years ago, when he was campaigning to lead FIFA.<\/p>\n

I was convinced by his values, and by his vision for the positive role that football can play in society.<\/p>\n

He was the leader FIFA needed at that moment, and everything I have seen from that time, until now, assures me that he deserves to continue to lead this organization.<\/p>\n

I welcome the expansion of the number of teams participating in the next World Cup.<\/p>\n

Under this format, the slots available for African teams will almost double, creating even more engagement and visibility on our continent.<\/p>\n

What is important, is the plan to continue developing football in Africa, and anchoring the sport here.<\/p>\n

We need to protect and nurture national football.<\/p>\n

The Africa Cup of Nations is not a \u2018little tournament\u2019.<\/p>\n

Often, the difference between a successful player in Africa and Europe is not talent. It is the lack of quality infrastructure, training, and support.<\/p>\n

Of course, each federation and association has the responsibility to fill those gaps. But working together, we can reach our common objectives more quickly.<\/p>\n

The football we build here in Africa can have as much value as it does in the places our players tend to go to pursue their careers.<\/p>\n

I commend Patrice Motsepe for his leadership of CAF and thank him once again for the honour bestowed on us the other night, which only encourages us to do more.<\/p>\n

We were also very happy yesterday, to unveil the Kigali Pel\u00e9 Stadium, in honour of the Brazilian legend that we all know.<\/p>\n

We also want to ensure equal opportunity for women, both on the field of play, and among managers, officials, referees, and other key supporting professions.<\/p>\n

In January, the Rwanda Football Association, in collaboration with FIFA, launched a four-year strategic development plan for women\u2019s football.<\/p>\n

Sport is meant to bring people together.<\/p>\n

In fact, the role of sports in our lives, and particularly football, is only becoming more central and sophisticated, as other methods of promoting global solidarity become more fragile.<\/p>\n

What the world needs, is to see more of the positive spirit of sportsmanship in our politics, rather than bringing political divisions into sports.<\/p>\n

That speaks to why Qatar was proud to host the World Cup, and Rwanda is honoured to host this FIFA Congress.<\/p>\n

We need to keep bad politics out of sports, as we saw last year in the constant, hypocritical criticism at the World Cup.<\/p>\n

Instead of asking, why is it being held there, first ask, why not?<\/p>\n

Unless we are talking about a kind of entitlement, that only some of us on this globe deserve to enjoy.<\/p>\n

It is about keeping some people in their place, but that kind of attitude should have been left far behind in history by now.<\/p>\n

That is not to say that athletes do not have a right to object to what personally affects them and their communities. They certainly do.<\/p>\n

Politics in sports reflects the problems that society faces.<\/p>\n

When fans throw bananas at African football players or taunt a female referee, that is because of a negative social environment that feeds those wrong behaviours.<\/p>\n

So, we need to work together to ensure that the game is inclusive and respectful of everyone.<\/p>\n

Ladies and gentlemen, once again, I welcome you to Kigali and hope that you will keep coming back to visit us. You will be very welcome.<\/p>\n

I wish you a very productive meeting and thank you for your kind attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A good morning to you all, and allow me to begin, by officially welcoming you to Rwanda. We are very happy to have you here. And I thank FIFA for choosing Rwanda as the host of this year\u2019s elective Congress. This is a great honour, even more so because you could have chosen to go elsewhere. To Qatar and FIFA, congratulations for organizing a successful World Cup last year. And to Argentina, congratulations to be the champions. It was one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speech","post-has-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17795,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17793\/revisions\/17795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulkagame.rw\/2025\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}