As the dust settles on the 2014 FIFA World Cup, football
fans can look back on an exciting tournament, even if some of our teams didn’t
exactly fulfil all of our hopes. However, beyond the pitch it’s not been a particularly great
year for FIFA or the brand of football in general.
In June revelations emerged
that payments
- in the region of 3 million pounds had been made to secure the 2022 world
cup in Qatar. In the following months FIFA president Sep Blatter has come under
mounting pressure – form both within FIFA and
from external sponsors - to take action. The incumbent president, in the role since 1998 and seen by
many as ‘untouchable’, has lashed out, saying that the allegations are racist
and discriminating, but some high-ranking officials have called for the bidding
process to be reopened. However,
while these corruption claims need be taken seriously, they are currently
overshadowing the real travesty of the 2022 Word Cup.
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| Aslan Media |
There is escalating evidence of the extremely harsh working
and living conditions migrant workers building the World Cup stadiums are being
forced into. The Kafala system that is commonly used in the Arab Gulf States, requires
foreign workers to have a ‘sponsor’, a role often taken on by the companies employing
them. It has been highly criticised as a form of ‘slave-labour’, with many
civil and human rights of workers being compromised. For the workers of the
2022 world cup this has included the removal
of passports and withholding of water in extreme heats. The number of
migrant workers to have died whilst working on the world cup stadiums is simply
staggering. Official figures taken from a report earlier in the year report
showed that 717
Indian, and more than 400 Nepalese workers have died whilst working on
world cup sites. At the present rate, 4000
people will die for the 2022 world cup before a ball has even been kicked.
To put it into perspective, more than 1 worker is dying per
day. Following the revelations at the beginning of 2014, there has been
mounting pressure on Qatar and FIFA to take action to protect the rights and
safety of all the 1.4 million workers involved in the 2022 preparation. However, just this week 2
British human rights workers investigating the plight of migrant workers have
gone missing, presumably detained by Qatari security forces.
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| Mark Hillary |
Meanwhile inside FIFA HQ men in suits sit in posh offices
and mutter about the need to cut out corruption ‘for the good of the game’. It
may well transpire that the Qatar world cup is the most corrupt in history. But
in reality it is an irrelevance compared to the suffering and misery going into
constructing the stadiums. There is absolutely no doubt if nothing is done to
protect migrant works, Qatar 2022 will be the most deadly World Cup in history.
The migrant workers will continue to remain the unseen
victims until both FIFA and the Qatari government take action to protect them.
It seems clear that both are willing to do so. Therefore it falls to all of
those around the world who love the game to speak out and make enough noise that
FIFA cannot ignore this any longer. I for one do not want to watch a World Cup
that is built upon the death of 4000 innocent people.
Henry.
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