Picture credit: Twitter
The highly anticipated FIFA World Cup 2022 is just 11 days away and a French newspaper has drawn heavy flak from the fans for publishing racist and xenophobic caricatures of the Qatar football team players.
The French weekly paper, Le Canard Enchaîné published a caricature of Qatari footballers dressed as terrorists with weapons and fans criticized the newspaper for its Islamophobic depiction of the Qatari players.
The cartoons used by the French newspaper shows footballers in long beards and turbans, armed with weapons and with hostile expressions. The image also showed five cartoon-like characters watching the game from the sidelines in white robes.
Check the racist depiction of Qatar football team:
Reportedly, the caricatures were published by the French weekly newspaper in its October issue and the since then sparked an outrage on social media as users termed it 'disgusting' while some called out the newspaper for 'bringing politics into football'.
Check some viral tweets:
Meanwhile, former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has claimed on Tuesday that "it was a bad choice" to give the hosting rights to Qatar for the 2022 world cup as "it’s a country that’s too small" to host a FIFA World Cup.
FIFA World Cup 2022 is set to start from November 20 as hosts Qatar will square off against Ecuador in the opening match of the quadrennial showpiece.