World Cup in Qatar: five cases that tarnish the reputation of the rich emirate

The awarding of the 2022 World Cup to Qatar was “a mistake”. The last sentence against Qatar was pronounced Tuesday, November 8 in an interview with the German agency SID, a subsidiary of AFP, by Sepp Blatter, who was president of the International Federation (Fifa) at the time of the vote.

Since the designation of Qatar as host of the Football World Cup at the end of 2010, the controversies follow one another and grow. The wealthy Gulf state, which spent tens of billions of dollars to host the already controversial tournament, from November 20 to December 18, is particularly blamed for the treatment of workers on construction sites linked to the competition, the respect of rights of women and LGBT+ people or the possible use of air conditioning in the stadiums where the matches will be played.

Qatari World Cup ambassador calls homosexuality ‘mental damage’

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Tuesday criticized the statements of a former Qatari player, “ambassador” of the 2022 World Cup, calling homosexuality “mental damage”. “Such statements are horrible,” she lamented at a press conference in Berlin.

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This Qatari “ambassador” of the World Cup, responsible for promoting the event, was interviewed by the German public channel ZDF. “During the World Cup, a lot of things are going to happen here in the country. Let’s talk about gay people,” says Khalid Salman. “The most important thing is that everyone will accept that they come here but they will have to accept our rules”, adds Khalid Salman. Homosexuality, “it’s ‘haram'” (which means “forbidden”, Editor’s note), he believes. “It’s ‘haram’ because it’s mental damage,” continues Khalid Salman, before being interrupted by a press officer.

Visiting Qatar last week, Nancy Faeser assured that she had obtained “for the first time” “safety guarantees” for all spectators, including LGBT + visitors, in this conservative Muslim state where same-sex sexual relations are criminalized. She had, in the process, decided to attend Germany’s first match, against Japan, on November 23. The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani assured on September 21 that all supporters would be welcomed “without discrimination” during the competition. FIFA had reaffirmed that rainbow flags, symbols of the LGBT + community, would be allowed around stadiums.

Qatar accused of having sponsored the espionage of personalities

The Gulf country had already been at the heart of a controversy for a few days: it is accused of being at the origin of the espionage by hackers based in India of nearly fifty personalities within the framework of the organization of the competition.

According to a survey published last Sunday in the British daily The Sunday Timesjournalists, like that of the Sunday Times Jonathan Calvert, who had investigated the alleged corruption maneuvers that led to the awarding of the test to Qatar in 2010, lawyers, or even the French senator, Nathalie Goulet, were the targets of these hackers hired to protect the reputation of Qatar. These personalities have most often been targeted for their work or the taking of critical positions on the awarding and organization of the Football World Cup.

Migrant workers: Qatar rejects calls for compensation fund

Qatar has rejected calls from NGOs for the creation of a compensation fund for migrants killed or injured on World Cup construction sites, its labor minister said in an exclusive interview with the AFP on November 2. Ali ben Samikh Al-Marri describes these calls as a “communication stunt”.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are leading a campaign to obtain compensation for migrant victims of “abuse” (deaths, injuries, unpaid wages and illegal recruitment fees) by world football governing body Fifa , and the host country of the 2022 World Cup.

“Each death is a tragedy (but) there are no criteria for establishing this fund” of compensation, advances the minister. “Where are the victims? Do you have the names?” he asks. The minister, on the other hand, stressed that his country had set up a compensation fund in 2018 for workers who do not receive their wages, putting forward the figure of 320 million euros paid in 2022 alone.

Non-payment of wages is the “main complaint” of migrant workers to the Qatari Ministry of Labor, according to two reports from the International Labor Organization (ILO) unveiled on 2 November. The number of complaints has “more than doubled” (reaching 34,425 between October 2021 and October 2022) thanks to the launch of an online filing platform last year, according to these reports which urge Qatar to “continue to work to full respect for international labor standards”.

Many voices criticize the small gas emirate about human rights, starting with the International Trade Union Confederation, author in 2014 of an uncompromising report on the treatment of migrant workers. The total of 6,500 dead advanced at the start of 2021 by the British newspaper The Guardian is questionable. It corresponds to all the deaths recorded in the population coming from South Asia between 2010 and 2020, all causes combined. Officially, there have been three deaths in the eight World Cup stadiums.

A World Cup described as an “ecological aberration”

The 2022 World Cup is described as an “ecological aberration” by its detractors. “We are committed to ensuring a completely carbon-neutral football World Cup. We will achieve this by measuring, reducing and offsetting all greenhouse gas emissions associated with the tournament,” said Hassan Al-Thawadi, the Secretary General of the World Cup Organizing Committee.

This commitment, however, struggles to convince and personalities have announced that they want to boycott the World Cup because of its ecological and human balance sheet. Former Manchester United star Eric Cantona notably denounced an “ecological aberration, with all these air-conditioned stadiums”.

According to a report commissioned by Fifa, the competition is expected to generate 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, compared to 2.1 million during the previous edition in Russia, in 2018. The vast majority (95%) comes from indirect emissions, mainly related to transport, infrastructure construction and housing. But this emissions report is incomplete, judges Carbon Market Watch, which estimates that the carbon footprint of stadium construction could have been underestimated by a factor of eight: 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 should be counted and not 0.2 million.

On the side of the organizers, it is argued that the proximity of the eight stadiums, within a radius of 75 kilometers, will reduce air traffic in favor of the metro and electric buses. But voices evoke the risk of an increase in emissions due to the many air shuttles intended to transport supporters from neighboring countries, to limit the pressure on the hotel offer in Qatar.

The air conditioning of stadiums, often held up as a symbol of energy and environmental waste, does not weigh very heavily in the balance sheet. But for French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, this open-air air conditioning “is not a good signal” in terms of energy sobriety.

Suspicions of corruption on the awarding of this World Cup

Suspicions of corruption over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup have mobilized the Swiss, American and French courts. Fifa had decided to award the 2018 and 2022 editions of the World Cup on the same day, December 2, 2010, “to try to ally Russia and the United States”, candidates for their organization, recalled Sepp Blatter , former president of Fifa from 1998 to 2015, now 86 years old. “There was a consensus within the executive committee of Fifa.”

A consensus which was however broken a week before the vote, explained Sepp Blatter on Tuesday to the German agency SID. He claimed that during a lunch at the Elysee Palace with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Qatar’s Crown Prince Tamim bin Hamad al Thani – who will become Emir in 2013 – the French President “advised” Michel Platini to vote for Qatar. A version of the facts denied by Michel Platini: “The president (Sarkozy) never asked me to vote for anyone, but I thought I understood (during lunch) that he supported Qatar”, a- he told the French investigators.

If Russia won the organization of the 2018 World Cup, Qatar won the 2022 World Cup, by 14 votes against 8 for the United States, a choice that Sepp Blatter had already described as a “mistake” in 2014, a year before having to leave office on the basis of scandals at Fifa. “The quintessence was that I could no longer count on the four votes of Europe for the United States,” he argues today. “If the four votes had gone for the United States, the United States would have won the World Cup, not Qatar. It’s the truth, I won’t budge.”