Qatar, Riyadh and the dark side of Sport

I thought this tournament deserves a thread of its own, being the most controversial World Cup Finals ever staged. Here's an article to kick it off;

Norway players wore T-shirts bearing the message 'Human rights on and off the pitch' before their 2022 World Cup qualifier against Gibraltar to show support for Qatar migrant workers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56516109

A report in The Guardian Newspaper said 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since the World Cup was awarded in 2010.

The country controversially beat rival bids from the United States, Australia, South Korea and Japan to host the tournament, with hundreds of thousands of construction workers arriving from overseas.
Qatar has been building seven new stadiums to stage the tournament, which has been moved to winter to avoid the country's extreme summer heat.

Good on the players.
Their FA should have the Kahonas to come out and say that if Norway qualify for the Finals, they won't be attending.

Our FA should do the same.

 

F*cking Sepp Blatter and his bent cronies. Australia would have staged a brilliant W/C, they know how to stage sporting events. I wonder how they arrived at the figure of £780,000 for his fine? Examined his accounts?

 

I'm not opposed in principle to the World Cup Finals being held on every continent if possible, and Australia would have been an excellent choice. Added to which of course Australia is a liberal democracy where the rights of women, religious minorities and LGBT+ communities are respected at least to some degree (as in those people are not criminalised and persecuted). Granted there are serious indigenous Rights issues that are still unresolved. But nowhere is perfect.

However, I sadly cannot think of one country in the Middle East that comes anywhere near what we would call basic minimum standards of liberty and equality. There are almost no democracies even.

I'm not saying that sovereign nations don't have the right to govern themselves however they see fit - as long as they are not waging wars of open aggression and territorial conquest upon their neighbours. But countries whose governments or rulers persecute and oppress their own people should not expect to be awarded huge prestigious Sporting events by any International organisation that claims to believe in equality of opportunity and personal freedom.

As far as I am aware, British football fans who wish to visit Qatar for the 2022 World Cup Finals will not be welcome if they are

• Women
• Jewish
• Openly LGBT+

When you add those categories up, I would guess that's about 40 million people.
Comfortably over half our entire population.

If our team goes to Qatar it will mark a new low in the history of FA shame - easily overtaking the current low point of ordering our footballers (including Charlton Athletic's Don Welsh) to give the Nazi Salute before we played Germany in a match back in 1938.

 

I can't see any country refusing to send a team. It's too late. Migrant workers have died by their thousands and had their passports removed, action should have been taken long ago. I would hope that fans would boycott it but they probably won't to any significant degree. I've still got my union card and am disappointed that no trade union made any sort of fuss about the conditions.

 

I personally wouldn't go given what has been going on in Qatar. Norway's protest was a small step in the right direction, byt way, way too late, and to be honest, the only effective protest would be a mass boycott by the nations. I won't single the FA out - every country has been complicit in doing absolutely nothing about the misery involved in preparing the Qatar World Cup, and as I recall, when eithyer the Guardian or BBC (I don't remember which) began to uncover some of the fraud around the vote, the major effort put in by any football authorities around thsi world cup was FIFA's efforts to stiffle investigation.
Even after Blatter was shunted aside, the whole charade continued. Embarrassing time to be a football fan.

 

Qatar authorities recently pointed out that it is an expensive country and probably not suitable for package tour fans.

The award to Qatar has enriched a few individuals and the TV broadcasters will do very well from it.

I will not be watching.

 

Great 5-0 win against a football non entity last night. Ahead shines the beacon of playing football in stadiums which rumour has it, cost the lives of 6000 people to build. How much proof is there of this because as much as I love the world Cup, especially when England win, I'll be avoiding this one.

 

The Qatar government issued an insulting pack of lies recently, claiming to have thoroughly investigated and learned lessons from the tragic death of every single migrant worker who has died while building their stadiums.
There might be a glimmer of truth in that, if a dozen workers had died, or twenty maybe.
But thousands?
It's plainly obvious they don't give a rats arse.

This World Cup Final tournament is already drenched in blood.
Two centuries ago thousands of workers (who had no rights or protections) died building our railways here in the UK - digging the tunnels and cuttings, building the bridges etc. All in the name of making mill owners rich while poor people were worked almost to death, and indeed were maimed and killed in uncounted numbers by machinery in their factories. And that's without even mentioning the men, women and children who toiled and died every day in the mines.

When people go on about Colonialism and slavery, the working classes here at home who suffered a century or more of institutionalised abuse are forgotten. So I guess I'm not surprised that it's still going on in other countries, despite a global communication and news reporting network that was beyond imagination at the end of the 18th Century.

In Norway several football Clubs are still lobbying their FA to boycott Qatar 2022 should their team qualify.
All power to them. People with a conscience who know when something is shamefully wrong and aren't afraid to speak up.

How many Clubs here in England are willing to do the same?
None that I know of.

 

I'd love to see empty stadiums at the W/C, and not because of Covid, because of a fans' boycott.

 

Republic of Ireland 0-1 Luxembourg 85 minutes...

 

I hear Norway, Turkey and Germany players have protested about human rights abuses in Qatar

Anything from the England camp yet?

 

Three Wales players sent home for breaching rules...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56568296

Staying up too late in their hotel?
Not exactly crime of the century. A bit more to it than that I suspect.
Good to see players picked to serve their country taking the responsibility seriously

 

It shouldn't be up to the players. The slavery conditions and deaths have been going on for years without anyone lifting a finger.

 

There's footy on the telly!

ITV - England v what's left of the Poland squad...

 

It’s still a footy fix so I’ll be watching it with beer in hand

 

O dear that was poor

 

Keano was right at half time.
England were too comfortable, just one shot on target from open play.

 

Germany 1 North Macedonia 2 .