The World Cup begins this Sunday, and as much as there are news about the teams competing in the tournament, there is much talk about the host country of the event. Qatar, a nation in the Middle East, has been experiencing its first international event hosting surrounded by controversies.
The choice of the host for the 2022 World Cup, made in 2010, generated immediate criticism – regarding the logistics of holding a sporting event in a country where summer temperatures regularly reach 100 Fahrenheit; regarding allegations of bribery and corruption among FIFA officials who voted for Qatar; and regarding concerns about the human rights abuses that persist in the country.
Recently, even the former FIFA president called the choice of Qatar a mistake.
“It was a bad choice. And I was responsible for it as president at the time,” said Sepp Blatter, whose tenure as FIFA administrator ended in 2015 amid a bribery scandal.
Lack of infrastructure and deaths of migrant workers
Qatar is the smallest country to host the World Cup, a complex international sporting event that attracts a large number of visitors and requires infrastructure to accommodate them.
With only 4,471 square miles, Qatar is about 20% smaller than the state of Connecticut. Much of the country is a sandy plain, and most of its 2.8 million inhabitants live in the area around the capital, Doha.
When it won the selection in 2010, Qatar lacked many of the stadiums, hotels, and highways necessary to host the tournament. To build them, the country turned to its enormous population of migrant workers, who make up 90% or more of its workforce. (Only about 300,000 residents of Qatar are citizens).
The working and living conditions of these migrant workers were often fraught with dangers. A 2021 investigation by the British publication The Guardian pointed out that more than 6,500 migrant workers from five South Asian countries died in Qatar since 2010 from all causes – work accidents, car accidents, suicides, and deaths from other causes, including heat.
“Some of them include workers who collapsed on the stadium construction site and died after being removed from it. Others died in traffic accidents on their way to work on a company bus. And many others died suddenly and inexplicably at their jobs,” said Pete Pattison, one of the reporters from the investigation, in an interview last year with NPR. FIFA and Qatar contest this number. Qatar says that only three people died as a direct result of working on the World Cup construction sites and acknowledges the death of 37 workers “unrelated to work.”
Qatar also sees the World Cup as an “incredible opportunity to improve the well-being standards” of its population, and authorities say that conditions for workers have improved since the country was chosen as the host.
Other human rights abuses
Concerns about human rights abuses extend beyond the treatment of migrant workers.
The Qatari penal code criminalizes sex outside of marriage, which has already led to the prosecution of rape victims. And homosexuality is effectively criminalized: sex between men is punishable by up to seven years in prison, and men who “instigate” or “seduce” another man to commit “an act of sodomy or immorality” can face one to three years in prison.
In a recent interview with a German broadcaster, Qatar’s ambassador for the World Cup described homosexuality as “damage to the mind.”
“The most important thing is that everyone will accept that they (homosexuals) come here. But they will have to accept our rules,” said ambassador Khalid Salman, a former player for the Qatari national team. The comments were widely condemned by Western authorities, including the U.S. State Department.
In a statement to NPR, the Qatari embassy said that “the safety of all visitors is of utmost importance” to the host country and that Qatar is a “relatively conservative society.”
“Everyone will be welcome in Qatar for the World Cup,” the statement said. “We simply ask all visitors to appreciate and respect our culture, just as they would if traveling to other places in the region and other parts of the world.”
Allegations of bribery and corruption
The choice of Qatar as the World Cup host has been marked by allegations of bribery and corruption.
The country was announced in 2010, winning the bids from the USA, South Korea, Japan, and Australia.
Over the years, several officials, both from FIFA and other organizations, have been accused of accepting or soliciting bribes to bring the World Cup to Qatar.
About a dozen FIFA officials involved in the selection have been banned from the organization – including its former president Blatter – or indicted on corruption charges. In 2019, French player and former head of European football Michel Platini was arrested during an investigation into a $2 million payment related to his efforts to bring the World Cup to Qatar. Blatter and Platini denied any wrongdoing.
A FIFA inquiry in 2014 cleared Qatari officials of any wrongdoing, allowing the tournament to proceed.
World Cup in November put pressure on players
The World Cup is traditionally held in the summer. But the heat and humidity of summer in Qatar would make the tournament unbearable, and the event was scheduled for November. (The matches will also be held in air-conditioned stadiums.)
The schedule caused major disruptions in professional football, especially in Europe, where most local league games run from late summer to the following spring. Major professional leagues, such as the English Premier League, the German Bundesliga, and Spain’s La Liga announced two-month breaks to accommodate the World Cup.
This tight schedule has caused an “unprecedented increase in the workload” of players, according to a new report from FIFPRO, the union representing 65,000 players worldwide.
For a typical summer World Cup, Premier League players historically have an average of 31 days to prepare and 37 days to recover, according to the report. This year, the preparation and recovery time has dropped to seven and eight days, the union says.
But now it is too late for complaints. The tournament is here. May the controversies surrounding the choice of the host country not overshadow the joy and excitement that this sport brings every four years to all continents of the world.
Source: NPR