If hosting the World Cup were a football game, Qatar would be in the boom for more than a decade.
With a year to go before the tournament, the country continues to defend itself to change the perception of being a hostile nation to minorities who wish to travel to watch the games. It also launches public relations actions to show advances in the issue of respect for human rights.
“It’s crazy. They’re all going to prison. But when that happens, I’ll already be dead,” predicted in 2010 the president of the AFA (Argentine Football Association), Julio Grondona, after the Middle East country won the right to host the competition .
The phrase, told to friendly journalists, stunned by Qatar having beaten the United States in the dispute to host the World Cup in 2022, was prophetic. The choice set off the FBI investigation into corruption and bribery, known as the FIFAgate. It resulted in the arrest of South American leaders and businessmen, the banning of top hats and the resignation of FIFA president Joseph Blatter in 2015. Grondona died in 2014.
Taking into account the infrastructure projects, stadiums and all the equipment needed to carry out the competition, the country will invest around US$ 220 billion in the organization (R$ 1.25 trillion at the current price). Russia spent US$ 12 billion (BRL 68.3 billion) to make the 2018 World Cup viable.
It has been 11 years in which Qatar has lived with accusations of disregard for human rights, restrictions on the LGBTQIA+ community and disregard for the immigrant working mass. The country is an absolutist and hereditary emirate, controlled by the House of Thiani since the 19th century.
In April of this year, teams from Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Ireland took to the field in qualifying matches with shirts or belts calling for respect for human rights.
The situation of immigrant workers involved in the construction of stadiums and infrastructure for the World Cup has been a source of controversy since 2010. The complaints from international organizations speak of the lack of labor protection for foreigners, exhausting journeys in temperatures that can exceed 50°C in summer, precarious housing and, mainly, the kafala.
This is the system that prohibits foreign workers from changing jobs, unless their current employer signs a letter authorizing the change.
“With a year to go before the World Cup, little has changed. Workers find it very difficult to change jobs. Many of them continue to suffer unreal discounts on wages or they are not paid. They should take cases to court, but access to it it’s almost impossible,” says May Romanos, UK researcher for the Persian Gulf of Amnesty International.
“There are problems with conditions for workers, especially in the summer. Our advisers say that the measures taken so far are not enough to protect them. There is no proper investigation into the unexplained deaths in the stadium construction and infrastructure works. families to seek compensation”, he adds.
Amnesty International describes the World Cup in Qatar as the “World Cup of shame”.
The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, responsible for organizing the tournament, disputes this view. In a text released by FIFA, he declares that he has worked “tirelessly to protect the health, safety and well-being of workers”.
“We are proud of what we have achieved over the past ten years and believe that our actions have created a benchmark for excellence, not just in Qatar, but in the region and around the world,” said Hassan Al Thawadi, the committee’s secretary general.
In an interview with sheet, in December 2019, he asked foreign fans present in the country for the sporting event to be open-minded and embrace Qatar’s culture.
In recent years, the Arab nation has signed treaties on working conditions and officially abolished kafala. But Amnesty International assures, in a report published last month, that the system continues to be used.
“The clock is ticking, but it’s not too late to put what’s on paper into practice. It’s time for the Qatari authorities to truly embrace labor reforms. Authorities’ complacency has left thousands of people at risk of exploitation by unscrupulous employers . After the World Cup, the fate of those workers who remain in Qatar will be even more uncertain,” complains Mark Dummett, director of global affairs at Amnesty International.
Infrastructure works (including a new city, Lusail, to host World Cup matches) and stadiums have made Qatar’s population grow almost 150% in the last ten years thanks to the mass of migrant workers. It represents about 2.4 million of the 2.7 million of the local population. The Qataris were the economic and social elite.
A report by British daily The Guardian revealed that 6,500 workers had died since the nation was granted the right to host the Cup. The government disputes this number.
Other entities that defend the interests of workers consider the fact that the laws have changed as an advance.
“Employers who deny workers rights and charge illegal fees will be prosecuted. We believe the culture of impunity in which employers fail to recognize new labor laws is ending. Workers in Qatar have rights and are protected by laws in line with international standards,” he said. Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the ITUC (English acronym for International Trade Union Confederation).
It is a change of mind. In an interview with sheet, in 2015, she said that “the biggest sporting event on the planet cannot take place under the shadow of a modern slavery regime”.
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