The FIFA World Cup is held every four years.
In 2022, it is being held in Qatar.
These are some of the reasons that the Qatar World Cup is receiving negative publicity.
1. Migrant Workers
In the Middle East, a lot of blue-collar professionals come to work. These professionals are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Malaysia, etc.
This is because the Dirham is valued higher than the currency of most of these countries and the workers can make decent money.
One employment practice is that the passports of these workers are taken away by the employer. This prevents the workers from quitting and going home if the work conditions are unsatisfactory.
To prepare the venues and other facilities for the World Cup, thousands of migrant labour professionals were employed. Many of them could not stand the difficult working conditions and passed away.
Almost 6500 migrant workers are estimated to have suffered as part of the World Cup preparations. This number is likely to be lower than the actual numbers because some countries do not report these as World Cup related tragedies.
2. Budweiser and the sponsorship
Every World cup, Budweiser, the lead sponsor of the World Cup, gives 75 million dollars to FIFA. That is a lot of money.
Budweiser is an American beer company. Football fans like to drink beer while watching matches.
It hoped to make a lot of sales through this sponsorship. However, in a surprise last-minute decision, Qatar decided to ban alcohol in the World Cup matches.
Which means that Budweiser will pay 75 million dollars but not be able to sell a single beer throughout the tournament.
Budweiser was silent at first but then has announced that it will ship all the beer that can’t be sold at the World cup to the winning country for free.
New Day, New Tweet. Winning Country gets the Buds. Who will get them? pic.twitter.com/Vv2YFxIZa1
— Budweiser (@Budweiser) November 19, 2022
3. Facilities and Access Levels for Fans
Fans paid about 175 dollars a night for tent accomodation. These ready to set up cabins have been imported from China and need to be installed.
But on the very first day, fans were amazed to see that some of the tents were still getting constructed. The tents were as hot as 37 degrees C, because the air conditioning was not working well. There were clogged pipes, no water, and other problems.
After the issue was raised on social media by many fans and also picked up by the UK press, Qatar has offered a refund and alternative accommodation (stay arrangement) to some of the affected tourists.
4. Fear of Unfair Arrest
One journalist has already been arrested for wearing a rainbow T Shirt.
Qatar has defended the arrest.
To protest against this discrimination, the captains of 7 countries decided to wear a rainbow armband to their matches.
However, FIFA asked them not to do this and that they would be given the yellow card (a warning card in Football) if they wore the armband.
Accordingly, the 7 European teams decided to not wear the armband.
While European teams are scared of a yellow card, the Iran national team refused to sing along when the Iranian National Anthem was played before their match. This means that when they go back to their country, they will face action by the Iran government. Iran has seen citizen protests for more than a month now. Both the protestors and the government refuse to back down or negotiate. This is leading to civil unrest, riots, etc.
5. Arresting 8 Indians and the issue with Zakir Naik
In September, Qatar Secret Services arrested 8 Indians. All of them were ex- Indian Navy professionals. Most of them retired at the rank of Commander.
Qatar did not share any reasons for the arrest.
They were allowed to speak to their families towards the end of September and were given Consular access (when someone from the Indian Embassy can go and talk to them) twice so far – once in October and once in November.
India has raised this issue with Qatar but the Indians are still in jail in Qatar.
The second issue was that of Zakir Naik.
Zakir Naik is a radical Islamist. He is wanted in India and moved to Malaysia in 2016. Since then, India has been trying for his extradition so that cases filed against him can be tried.
According to some reports, Zakir Naik was invited by Qatar to the FIFA Football World Cup.
India took this up with Qatar. Qatar has apparently (as it appears) communicated to India through diplomatic channels that Zakir Naik is not a state guest.
To conclude
#BoyCottQatar2022 is trending on Twitter.
Linkedin has posts that highlight the issues with the Qatar World Cup. Qatar won this bid in 2010.
Some people believed that FIFA officials were bribed by Qatar to win the bid. In 2020, The US Department of Justice officially stated that it believes that FIFA officials were paid to give the World Cup bid to Qatar (2022) and Russia (2018).
FIFA is the governing body of Football worldwide (Federation of International Football Associations). In 2015, 14 FIFA officials were indicted (held guilty) and had to resign for taking bribes. The bribes went as far back as the 1990s.
Some fans have decided to not watch the matches even on TV. This will lead to a loss of revenue for the channels airing the matches. This means that they will not pay the Qatar government as much to get the rights to show the matches.
Image Credits: As given. The highlight image is from Pixabay.