“Qatarstrophe” in Qatar before World Cup
Thousands of soccer fans are up in arms against what they claim as ‘Qatarstrophe’ in Qatar on the eve of the world’s most prestigious soccer show – the 2022 World Cup Soccer – blaming the Arab nation for the death of an unspecified number of migrant workers.
By Prasanta Paul
“5,000 dead for 5,760 minutes of football. Shame on you!” this message echoed across Germany on the eve of the 2022 Qatar Soccer World Cup.
Don’t hasten to conclude that Germany is toying with the idea of a boycott of the most prestigious soccer event in the world!
Call it Western outrage or so, tens of thousands of soccer fans displayed their displeasure over the weekend, especially in Germany, for what they claimed as‘Qatarstrophe’ in the international soccer arena.
The Washington post reported, “their angst and displeasure stem from a laundry list of complaints about the host nation’s autocratic monarchy, including its alleged human rights abuses, suppression of dissent, persecution of LGBTQ people and shocking mistreatment of migrant workers.”
They fiercely cite a varying estimate of labour fatalities during the course of Qatar’s mega construction projects since it won the tournament bid 12 years ago.
Fatalities & Migrant workers
Of Qatar’s 3 million population, eighty-five per cent comprise foreign workers, and a considerable chunk of that pool again consist of migrant labourers from such poor countries as East Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia including India.
About 6,5000 workers from South Asia, The Guardian quoted from a reliable report last year, had died since Qatar was awarded the World Cup.
Not all of these deaths have been blamed on the World Cup projects though.
Even as Amnesty International has accused Qatar of its failure to investigate most workers’ underlying cause of death, the Qatar authorities’ tame and tampered the logic put the toll of construction related fatalities barely at 38 workers.
However, closer and a detailed scrutiny by the human rights groups has exposed a raft of problems in the labour sector, from issues in housing conditions to heat-related illness, to missed pay and other abuses by employers.
Cloud of Controversy
A report in the Washington post mentioned that the FIFA executive during whose tenure Qatar bagged the bid, now claims it was a “mistake.” Qatar “is too small of a country,” Sepp Blatter, former FIFA president, was recently quoted as saying by the Swiss newspaper Tages Anzeiger, “Football and the World Cup are too big for it.”
What makes Sepp’s latest remark shrouded in controversy was a chain of events that shook FIFA since 2010.
Since Sepp’s exit from the world soccer body in 2015 amid a spiraling corruption scandal that also implicated some of his colleagues, Blatter himself emphatically defended Qatar’s bid for the tournament.
The reason: the Arab nation’s vast natural gas reserves would fund the first-ever World Cup in the Middle East, despite the tiny nation’s pathetic lack of experience in organising any previous international soccer tourneys.
True, there has not been any clear evidence so far, of graft or an underhand dealing that could have sealed the bid in favour of Qatar.
Yet, the smoky backrooms in Zurich, where FIFA is based, reveal how Qatar has splashed its sovereign wealth cash out in the open since winning the bid.
Barely at the drop of a hat, it bought French club Paris Saint-Germain to demonstrate its ‘not-so-long-hidden’ penchant for soccer! And PSG’s squad now includes the who’s who of soccer – Brazil’s Neymar, Argentina’s Lionel Messi and French talisman Kylian Mbappe.
An Attempt to Burnish its image?
Since then, Qatar has plowed some $220 billion to build from scratch a vast, sprawling infrastructure suited to host a tournament of this grand scale. That includes new roads, a metro system, dozens of hotels and seven new stadiums (some resembling the shape of a vagina from above!).
This is an exercise, many soccer experts claim, in “sports washing” to burnish the image of a problematic regime.
This mammoth project of construction invariably brought attention to country’s poor labour rights record.
Hypocrisy or Hype?
To many Qataris, the latest posturing of soccer fans, celebrities and politicians elsewhere stings of hypocrisy. Because they say, in 2018, when Russia hosted the tournament, there was arguably not this level of condemnation from other sporting authorities and fans.
Nevertheless, officials from both Qatar and FIFA have urged the million-plus fans set to arrive at Doha from next week to tone down their harsh political criticism and respect the tournament for its historic uniqueness.
However, Qatar has not been lying idle either; it has cited the typical double-standard resorted to by the West and Europe when it comes to investment by Qatar in mega projects there.
“The governments (in the West or Europe) have no problem with us when it comes to energy partnerships or investments. Isn’t it ?” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar’s foreign minister questioned.
In a televised speech last month, Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani said his nation was the target of ‘unprecedented” outside attacks.
“(They) “include fabrications and double standards that were so ferocious that it has unfortunately prompted many people to question the real reasons and motives behind the campaign.”
The burning issue of death of a large number of migrants who comprise a permanent underclass in gulf monarchies like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, is, nonetheless, hardly dying.
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