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Letter to the Editor: Why You Shouldn’t Watch Qatar World Cup 2022

Daisy Maturo
December 1, 2022

Note: MFS Wordsworth welcomes and encourages Letters to the Editor. Letters to the Editor are publications that entirely reflect the opinion of the author, not necessarily the views of the MFS WordsWorth staff.

The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) World Cup is an internationally popular soccer tournament that takes place once every four years. It is the most popular sporting event in the world, with viewers from over 200 nations. However, with this popularity comes a controversy surrounding this year’s competition: the host nation, Qatar, has violated the human rights of migrant workers and bribed its way to winning a spot as the host nation, destroying the integrity of the selection process for the 2022 World Cup in the process.

In fact, whether or not Qatar should even be allowed to host has reached the ears of those who aren’t even avid fans of soccer, myself included. On multiple occasions throughout the week, I’ve heard friends and classmates talking about the cruel working conditions of the workers building the soccer stadiums. Some students were left unsure of whether it is right or wrong to watch the World Cup because of this, and there’s still much more to unpack beyond what lies on the surface of the debate.

It is important to know some background information about the World Cup to understand how it works before assessing its morality. First is the host nation selection process: FIFA gathers “bids,” or applications from countries that wish to host the World Cup for the designated year. Before any country is properly considered, however, FIFA has to verify that the country meets a list of specific criteria. One of the requirements is an assessment that evaluates the financial and environmental statuses of the country, as well as the human rights impact (ex. resulting water contamination, health/safety of employees and customers, current volatility of a country) that hosting might have on said country. After the list of countries has been narrowed down to those that fit the criteria, a “FIFA Congress” votes on which country should be the host nation. The nation with the majority of votes becomes the host nation.

With this in mind, it is hard to ignore Qatar’s blatant disrespect towards the bidding process. There have been investigations by both the United States and Switzerland legal authorities over alleged bribes to FIFA Congress members. Over the course of a decade, the country of Qatar and its media network, Al-Jazeera, has allegedly bribed members of FIFA with a grand total of $880 million in order to become a host nation for the 2022 World Cup.

Moreover, this wasn’t at all recent: in 2017, an investigation was held in the United States about a FIFA official, Julio Grondona, who admitted to accepting bribes from Qatar for millions of dollars. This was seven years after Qatar had been officially chosen to host the World Cup, so a lot of the infrastructure process had already been completed. However, this provided no excuse for FIFA to continue to allow Qatar to host; at the time, there was already plenty of information to suggest that a reselection should occur, or at least a reconsideration by FIFA.

Of course, this isn’t the main issue that caused the controversy; the bigger issue lies with Qatar’s infringement on human rights towards the migrant workers who worked on the stadiums. Anonymous workers stated that they worked year-round even if temperatures exceeded 100º F, were recruited illegally, and were constantly under threat of deportation. Stadium laborers anonymously claimed that dangerous jobs were racially determined and that workers faced verbal and physical abuse, as well as unreasonably long hours and some wages left unpaid or undercompensated. The working conditions were so harsh that 11 labor deaths were recorded in one year, and most of their deaths were excused as sudden organ failure. The patterns seen in Qatar are terrifyingly similar to human trafficking and modern slavery, and it is hard to imagine how the country could’ve reasonably managed to pass FIFA’s human rights assessment without bribery.

It is important to note that FIFA should be held accountable for Qatar’s wrongdoings as well as putting millions of watchers around the world – including Moorestown Friends School soccer fans – in such a difficult position over something that should be simple. The negligence around such a large-scale issue by the sports company is more than enough cause to question FIFA’s trustworthiness as a company. FIFA not only passed Qatar as a country whose human rights aren’t questionable enough to be pulled from the bid (despite the country being known for labor abuse and discrimination of women and the LGBTQ+ community), but they also accepted bribes and chose not to give Qatar any repercussions for their myriad of offenses.

FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, decided to respond to the controversy by sending a letter to the 32 teams participating in the 2022 World Cup: “[Let’s] not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists … At FIFA, we try to respect all opinions and beliefs, without handing out moral lessons to the rest of the world. One of the great strengths of the world is indeed its very diversity, and if inclusion means anything, it means having respect for that diversity… No one people or culture or nation is ‘better’ than any other. This principle is the very foundation stone of mutual respect and non-discrimination. And this is also one of the core values of football.” Not only did Infantino chose to treat the issue of modern slavery as just one “political battle” out of many, but he made a painfully ironic attempt to save face by calling the controversy in Qatar discrimination. Calling the fight for human rights racist because activists allegedly don’t have respect for Qatar’s culture is unacceptable as it tries to excuse the issues within the country and delegitimize other fights for human rights.

While it may feel like the World Cup doesn’t relate to our school community, this isn’t true; student-led watch parties are being planned at school to support teams playing in the World Cup, and there are plenty of soccer fans at MFS. Even those who weren’t initially into soccer are becoming interested in the event.

So, is it okay to watch the 2022 World Cup? That depends on who you ask. FIFA’s abuse of the bidding system and Qatar’s abuse of laborers go against our school’s Quaker value of integrity, and an extreme violation of human rights like this should be taken seriously by our community. However, it’s important to note that not watching the World Cup would also be punishing the soccer teams that participate in and earn money from the World Cup and earn their money off of it. Some teams are even protesting Qatar as a host nation: popular players have publicly condemned Qatar’s labor practices, and some teams were planning on wearing OneLove armbands that goes against all forms of discrimination to protest Qatar’s laws prohibiting homosexuality – that is, before FIFA announced that wearing these armbands would result in punishment. However, this didn’t stop Germany’s players from protesting: they posed for a photo with their hands over their mouths to protest free speech and expression.

A sticker with the words “Boycott Qatar 2022” on it. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.

The myriad of human rights violations that Qatar’s stadium builders faced and the bribery to accompany it speaks to not only the deep societal corruption that lives in the core of Qatar’s laws, labor practices, and actions, but also the sad truth that the façade compassion and integrity disappear from those in power as soon as money is brought into the equation. This is why even though attempts are being made within the student body to educate one another and discuss these issues that the World Cup is facing, it isn’t enough. This is because there is so much to debate about and understand within the topic, and learning about international problems like this is vital to understanding the world around us and developing awareness within our school for the injustices faced by the rest of the world. The deeper our community leans into the conversation, even if no action is taken, there will at least be a sense of understanding and empathy for what Qatar’s laborers have been put through and are still continuing to face.

 

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