While I’ve never actually met him, I am not fan of Gianni Infantino. Mr. Infantino, if you’re not familiar with him, is the President of FIFA – the body that is responsible for the World Cup (and don’t ask “World Cup of what?” You know what World Cup I’m talking about). I am certainly not alone in my dislike of Mr. Infantino, many others share this feeling. It’s fair to say that he has earned enmity of millions.
What has he done to deserve this? Well, there is his high-handedness and ridiculous sense of entitlement. For example, when he was in Vancouver recently for a meeting, he requested a police motorcade to take him from the airport. What’s wrong the SkyTrain, it’s quick and takes you right downtown. Oh, and police motorcades are reserved solely for political dignitaries like prime ministers and presidents.
And speaking of presidents, that’s another reason to dislike Mr. Infantino. Last year, FIFA, for no rational reason, decided to award, for the first time, a FIFA Peace Prize. And the winner of this first (and likely last) FIFA Peace Prize was Donald Trump. In handing out the award, Infantino said (and I’m not making this up): “This is what we want from a leader; A leader that cares about the people. We want to live in a safe world, in a safe environment.” And that, to him, is Donald Trump. As we like to say in the legal profession, “I rest my case.”
And while all those are good reasons to dislike Mr. Infantino, that’s not why I’m upset with him. I’m angry with him because he forced Gordon’s Acoustic Living Room to move the date of one of our gigs. I am not suggesting that he knows or cares anything about the Living Room, that wonderful aggregation of musicians that I am so pleased to be a part of, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t screw things up for us.
As many of you know, we generally play four times a year at the Free Times Café (on College, just west of Spadina). Our first gig every year is on January 25, Robbie Burns Day (a Monday in 2027 – you might want to put in your calendar now). The other three gigs are on the third Sunday of whatever month we’re playing. For our spring show, we were deciding between May 17 and June 21. And then we discovered that FIFA, in their arrogant and dictatorial way, made the City of Toronto agree that on or around the date of all World Cup matches there will be “no substantial cultural events.” And on June 20, Germany is playing the Ivory Coast – “Go Elephants” (that’s the nickname of the Ivory Coast team).
Do I know for certain that if we had our gig on June 21, that this would be seen as a “substantial cultural event;” I can’t be sure. It is without question a substantial cultural event for us – and we hope for our audience. Not wanting to take the chance of having the gig cancelled when the FIFA goon squad learned about a June show, we decided to avoid any controversy and opted for the May date, and that’s why our next show will be Sunday, May 17. We’ll be taking the stage at 8 pm, as we usually do, and we will be playing tunes from our wildly eclectic songbook. And in stark contrast to the extortionate amounts that FIFA is charging to attend World Cup matches, there will be no cover.
Hope to see you there.
P.S. Three countries at the World Cup – France, Spain and Iran – feature bagpipes in their regional music, so fans from those countries who miss the squalling and screeching of the pipes are welcome to come to the show – I promise they’ll be a whole lot of screeching going on.