FIFA President Gianni Infantino apparently couldn’t wait for the next World Cup opening press conference to provide tangible evidence for how or why he feels “disabled” (or gay, or African for that matter). Instead, he chose FIFA’s latest congress in Vancouver to further solidify his reputation as the ‘world’s most incompetent try-hard.’

After getting rejected by Vancouver on his request for Pope-level motorcade treatment, Infantino opened the congress by reiterating his co-opted claim that football has the power to “unite the world.” He then beckoned both the president of the Palestinian football federation (Jibril Rajoub) and the Israel FA vice-president (Basim Sheikh Suliman) onto the stage, where he encouraged them to come closer together for a handshake (i.e. self-serving photo op). But both men refused. There was some minor shouting, and eventually everyone walked off stage, Infantino having failed at his attempt to make peace.

You might hear all this and find it fairly obvious that a chronically self-deceiving bureaucrat in the sports industry would fall short trying to inject his own power and influence into a ‘thousands of years old fight,’ but here’s the real reason why Infantino’s attempt to make peace between Palestine and Israel was an utter failure…

Simply put, it’s because football is not enough. Yes, Gianni. Football does unite the world. We all know that. Every fan or traveler who has enjoyed connecting with another human being, sometimes even without a shared verbal language, through the universal language of footy knows that. It proves itself out over and over again every World Cup cycle, across both the men’s and women’s tournaments. But FIFA’s president’s latest blunder is a great example of something the rest of (at least most of us) recognized a long time ago: It takes more than football.

Uniting the world takes meeting people where they’re at—often times literally. Out in the real world. Not in fancy hotels or ballrooms or congresses. In a person’s home country. In a person’s home. In their natural, everyday environments. Or at least in a shared common space, where everyday, common, working class people gather, to share things in common—and more than likely, realize that they share more than one thing in common.

At the very least, it takes an appreciation of where someone else is coming from. Not forcing them to come to you or your ideas. Especially those that reek of “this is going to be great for me and my image.” Because guess what? That mentality is probably going to backfire. Oh wait… it did!

In the words of the Palestinian (FA) president, Rajoub, “I think Gianni has the right to try to bridge gaps and bring people together, but I think maybe he does not understand or does not know the deep suffering of the Palestinian people.”

Between this latest gaffe and his countless other shortcomings, it’s evident that Infantino doesn’t understand or know even the slightest discomfort of any people. The man can not relate. And it shows.

On the other hand, there’s good news. Infantino and FIFA are not the entirety of the footy world. And its football that unites, not FIFA and its goons and goobers. That’s why we’re footy fans, not FIFA ‘stans.’ And not just footy fans, but footy travelers. Football brings people together, and we’d argue it’s the footy traveler’s mindset that solidifies real human connection. Stuff to shake hands over. But the footy traveler’s mindset is about more than just the world’s most beloved sport, it’s about the world’s people and cultures. Hopefully you feel the same way, and if you’ve read this far… we think you do ;-)

We’ll see you out there fellow footy travelers!