The Fédération Internationale de Football Association is one of the most prestigious sports organizations in the world. Founded to be a governing body over the professional football world, FIFA has a tremendous influence over all football competitions. The most prominent of FIFA competitions, the FIFA World Cup, is being held for the 22nd time in Qatar this winter.
The competition is a place where rival supporters all band together under one banner to support their country. The valuable aspect of the World Cup isn’t the last-minute game winners, the spectacular goals, or the anguish of defeat. Rather, it is the unification of people all around the globe, watching and enjoying the world’s game.
In 2007, FIFA reformed the system in which they selected the next country to host the World Cup. FIFA adopted the system of bidding for the World Cup in which members of the FIFA Executive Committee had one vote in an exhaustive ballot system where the candidate with the least votes in each round would be eliminated from consideration. Qatar won the bidding for the 2022 World Cup in a decision that shocked the world. Qatar is a country that has a population of over 2.5 million and is twice the size of Delaware — not an appropriate host for the world’s biggest sporting event.
Several factors contributed to the selection of Qatar for 2022, but in the end, it all came down to one thing: corruption. FIFA does not have a great track record, having a huge corruption scandal in 2015 that involved former FIFA president Sepp Blatter. Qatar, an extremely wealthy country due to its oil reserves, took advantage of this weakness in FIFA’s system. In their bid for the 2022 world cup, Qatar spent about $200 million USD to be considered. In comparison, Australia spent around $46 million.
In addition to this, Qatari football official Mohamed bin Hammam, who was banned for life from football in 2011 (a sentence that was lifted less than a year later), pulled out of the 2011 FIFA presidential elections to allow Blatter to win reelection. As good friends, it is highly suspected that the decision for Qatar to host was also influenced by Hammam’s connections to Blatter.
There are allegations of several FIFA Executive Committee members accepting bribes to vote for Qatar to host in 2022. Some of these bribes have allegedly reached sums of nearly $15 million to influence three South American officials for their votes. Other allegations against FIFA officials that arose from the U.S. Department of Justice include racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering.
In order to prepare for the World Cup, Qatar needed to build up fast. The Qatari government utilized the labor of 30,000 foreign workers that mainly come from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, and the Philippines. Throughout the construction of stadiums, these laborers were victims of many human rights violations. They have reportedly not received wages, live in terrible conditions and have health issues that are simply looked over.
It is reported that many workers have been detained or deported for protesting the conditions they have been subjected to. Over three dozen deaths have been reported among stadium construction workers since 2014, and 6,500 migrant worker deaths total since 2010, the year Qatar was selected. Although the World Cup was delayed to the winter due to the scorching heat, it is seemingly fine to force workers to toil for unreasonable hours in the 102-degree weather. In addition, the company that hires these workers, the Al Sulaiteen Agricultural and Industrial Complex, promised great wages and conditions.
Workers were instead given wages of one euro per hour, which is less than they would make in their home countries. They were treated more like slaves than paid laborers, trapping them into building their magnificent structures and then sending them back to their cramped, windowless, dirty, living quarters that are 40 minutes away in the desert. They do not even allow workers to change jobs unless they go back to their home country and apply for another visa, paying even more fees. One would think that being as wealthy as Qatar is, they would have enough funds to treat their workers right, but that is not the case.
Fans in Qatar are not safe from mistreatment either. The monarchy in Qatar has very strict laws against members of the LGBTQ+ community, with the punishment being seven years in prison for any same-sex relationships. Although senior officials in Qatar have implied that LGBTQ+ fans are welcome, they also recommend that they do not display their sexuality as they might be physically assaulted with their belongings confiscated. This is not a suggestion; this is a clear threat and a statement that the 2022 World Cup is not welcoming to all.