Monday, June 01, 2015

FIFA’s impossible, corrupt Qatar math: How FIFA had to have known forced labor was needed for 2022’s Qatari World Cup...

Sepp Blatter’s FIFA presidential campaign, at least in public, consisted of a single statement—that he would run on his record as a FIFA executive of over 40 years and his record as president over the past 17. To watch him spin his Friday re-election as a mandate for change—only days after a significant number of his executives had been arrested on criminal corruption charges—may seem both hypocritical and surreal to observers. But to football fans, it is nothing new. That’s FIFA.

But there was one moment where even we, the fans, were caught off-guard by the sheer absurdity of the body that was governing our sport. It was a decision that has since come to personify the greed, arrogance and corruption surrounding FIFA: the awarding of the hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup Finals to Qatar.

Qatar is a tiny wealthy state with a population of just over 2 million people protruding out of the Arabian Peninsula into the Persian Gulf. It is one of only a half-dozen remaining absolute monarchies in the world, ruled as a theocratic state under a very conservative Wahhabi form of Sharia Law. Lashings for crimes such as adultery or consuming alcohol are common, while for Muslims homosexuality is punishable by death. The rights of women have not progressed beyond the 19th century. There are no political parties, let alone an opposition movement. There are no unions or student organizations and—perhaps not surprisingly—no elections.

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Of Qatar’s population of 2.2 million, some 90 percent are foreign workers—the highest proportion of any nation in the world. They carry out the tasks that the local citizenry of 250,000 would not otherwise be capable of fulfilling (or would not want to). It is estimated by the ITUC that more than 4,000 such workers will die on construction projects leading up to the Qatar World Cup in 2022.

How does such an unlikely host for a World Cup tournament get selected despite being unable to meet most requirements? How does it happen, even against the advice of its own internal committee report and despite requiring forced labor and the deaths of so many workers? That’s FIFA. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. FIFA, Sepp Blatter and Qatar...
  2. The human toll of Fifa’s corruption...
  3. Qatar World Cup: Campaign to boycott the 2022 World Cup underway...
  4. Arrested for reporting on Qatar's World Cup labourers...
  5. Blatter: Qatar World Cup workers’ welfare is not Fifa’s responsibility...

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