The Lusail Stadium in Doha, Qatar, will host the final of this year's World Cup which kicks off in November.
This November, billions of people around the world will tune in to the World Cup – one of the greatest sporting spectacles in human history.
There’s just one problem: This year, it’s happening in Qatar.
In Qatar, journalists are thrown in jail for investigating migrant worker conditions. LGBTQ+ people are treated as criminals. Women need to ask men permission to marry, travel and study abroad in many cases.
And Qatari labor practices have been compared to modern slavery – a reported 6,500 South Asian migrant workers have died in Qatar since the country was awarded the World Cup in 2010. Experts say it is likely a lot of these deaths are related to construction of buildings for the tournament.
6,500 deaths – at least. The total death toll is almost certainly higher, as this figure does not include many countries sending workers to Qatar, including the Philippines and African nations.
(Qatar argues that the mortality rate for its migrant worker community is within the expected range for the size and demographics of the population.)
In recent years, Qatari authorities have introduced “several promising labor reform initiatives,” according to Human Rights Watch. But “significant gaps remain,” it said, including “widespread wage abuses” and failure to “investigate the causes of deaths of thousands of migrant workers.”
It’s an event that has brought wars to a standstill, canonized sporting saints and sinners, and united the planet in savoring every exclamation point goal, last-ditch tackle and intricately choreographed celebratory knee-slide.
There’s just one problem: This year, it’s happening in Qatar.
In Qatar, journalists are thrown in jail for investigating migrant worker conditions. LGBTQ+ people are treated as criminals. Women need to ask men permission to marry, travel and study abroad in many cases.
And Qatari labor practices have been compared to modern slavery – a reported 6,500 South Asian migrant workers have died in Qatar since the country was awarded the World Cup in 2010. Experts say it is likely a lot of these deaths are related to construction of buildings for the tournament.
6,500 deaths – at least. The total death toll is almost certainly higher, as this figure does not include many countries sending workers to Qatar, including the Philippines and African nations.
(Qatar argues that the mortality rate for its migrant worker community is within the expected range for the size and demographics of the population.)
In recent years, Qatari authorities have introduced “several promising labor reform initiatives,” according to Human Rights Watch. But “significant gaps remain,” it said, including “widespread wage abuses” and failure to “investigate the causes of deaths of thousands of migrant workers.”
A controversial bid
Let’s not pretend that the Qataris won their Cup bid through merit alone. After all, Qatar – a peninsula smaller than Connecticut and with heat so extreme that it’s a potential health risk to play soccer there during the summer months – is the last place it would make sense to host a giant international sporting tournament.
How, then, did Qatar get chosen? Well, as an endless stream of investigative journalism alleges, it won the bid through a process that was rigged from top to bottom. (Qatar strongly denies the allegations).
Shortly after France’s supporting vote, for instance, Qatar Sports Investments purchased the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club; around the same time, another Qatari firm bought a piece of Veolia, a French energy and waste company.
Not to mention: A firm connected to the Qatari sovereign fund hired the son of Michel Platini, the former head of the European football association. Népotisme? Zut alors!
But don’t take our word for it. Matt Miller, a former Department of Justice official who traveled with former Attorney General Eric Holder to Zurich to witness the bidding process, told us: “It was the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen in my career, and I spent a couple years working in New Jersey politics.”
Jokes aside, all this raises the question: Why would Qatar even want to host the World Cup?
The answer is that the country is hoping for a Beijing 2008 Olympics moment – a chance to airbrush its human rights abuses and shine on a global stage. By hosting the World Cup, Qatar wants to project a cosmopolitan image like that of its neighbors in the UAE, signaling it is open for business, welcoming to tourists and a player in global politics. CNN - link - Roger Bennett - link - Tommy Vietor - link - more like this (human rights) - link - more like this (Veolia) - link
Let’s not pretend that the Qataris won their Cup bid through merit alone. After all, Qatar – a peninsula smaller than Connecticut and with heat so extreme that it’s a potential health risk to play soccer there during the summer months – is the last place it would make sense to host a giant international sporting tournament.
How, then, did Qatar get chosen? Well, as an endless stream of investigative journalism alleges, it won the bid through a process that was rigged from top to bottom. (Qatar strongly denies the allegations).
Shortly after France’s supporting vote, for instance, Qatar Sports Investments purchased the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club; around the same time, another Qatari firm bought a piece of Veolia, a French energy and waste company.
Not to mention: A firm connected to the Qatari sovereign fund hired the son of Michel Platini, the former head of the European football association. Népotisme? Zut alors!
But don’t take our word for it. Matt Miller, a former Department of Justice official who traveled with former Attorney General Eric Holder to Zurich to witness the bidding process, told us: “It was the most corrupt thing I’ve ever seen in my career, and I spent a couple years working in New Jersey politics.”
Jokes aside, all this raises the question: Why would Qatar even want to host the World Cup?
The answer is that the country is hoping for a Beijing 2008 Olympics moment – a chance to airbrush its human rights abuses and shine on a global stage. By hosting the World Cup, Qatar wants to project a cosmopolitan image like that of its neighbors in the UAE, signaling it is open for business, welcoming to tourists and a player in global politics. CNN - link - Roger Bennett - link - Tommy Vietor - link - more like this (human rights) - link - more like this (Veolia) - link
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