Despite the criticisms aimed at Doha, “Liberation” has chosen to cover the competition without concealing the social and ecological aberrations that surround it.
Two months before its kickoff, the question of the boycott of the FIFA World Cup organized in Qatar invites itself into the locker room. A little music that should go crescendo as the most popular and most publicized sporting event in the world approaches. No need to do four laps of the field while trotting before deciding: advocating a boycott today seems very late. And unrealistic. Release in any case will cover the event, listening to its sporting issues of course, but without hiding the diplomatic, economic, social, societal, environmental controversies… Without rose-colored glasses or blinders therefore.
The reasons to wonder about the holding in November of the World Cup in this small Gulf country, decided by Fifa in 2010, accumulate. They sometimes exist from the start. Nobody discovers the moon on Qatar’s long assumed links with Islamist movements, or its distended relations with human rights, and especially women’s rights. The working conditions of the workers, most of them immigrants, scandalized international public opinion, especially after the Guardian estimated that more than 6,000 of them died on the construction sites. The construction of air-conditioned stadiums has highlighted the environmental aberrations of the event. It’s starting to do a lot to feel comfortable in front of your TV at Les Bleus time… If the boycott is not seriously on the agenda, the two months that separate us from the start of the competition must be used tirelessly to carry iron on all the fronts mentioned. On the ecological aspect for example, it is necessary to document the Qatari delirium to better oblige the States and the international sports authorities to radically transform these great routs. It starts with the Paris Olympics in 2024 and the 2026 World Cup: the important thing will not be to participate but to get active.