“We must leave the controversy aside and give way to the game and the World Cup”, estimated Monday the ex-footballer Zinedine Zidane, about the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, which arouses many controversies and calls for boycott.
“I wish a very good competition to the French team. I don’t know yet if I will go to Qatar, ”said the football icon at the Grévin museum in Paris, where he came to inaugurate a new wax statue in his likeness.
Since the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar in December 2010, the competition, which will begin on November 20, has sparked much controversy on subjects such as respect for human rights and the protection of the environment.
The working conditions of the foreign workers who built the infrastructure and the running of the competition in eight stadiums, seven of which were built for the tournament, are regularly denounced.
Asked about the 2022 World Cup, “ZZ” found it necessary to “leave room for the game and the World Cup for all enthusiasts who just want to see football”, and so that they “have a good time”.
“Anyway, what we are going to say about anything, it will never be right, never true and timely,” he added.
The footballer, star of the 1998 World Cup, was surrounded by his parents, his wife and his children.
“It’s a privilege to be at the Grévin museum and even more so to have been requested by visitors. I come back with less hair. I’m glad to be back. I’m a reserved person off the pitch. It touches me all the more to be here with all my family,” he said.
Only before him, General de Gaulle, Elisabeth II, Julien Clerc, Pierre Richard and Bernard Pivot were entitled to their wax doubles at several periods of their lives.
Represented for the first time in the official uniform of the France team – blue jersey and white shorts – with his hair, the new Zidane returns in a sober coach’s city suit… with a bald spot.
Considered one of the greatest players and coaches in the history of football, Zinédine Zidane inaugurated his wax double in 1999 at the same time as that of Fabien Barthez. The statue had been put away for a few years, the Grévin museum not considering it sufficiently successful.
The new wax “Zizou” was installed alongside the doubles of other football stars: Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but also the other god of the stadium, King Pelé.