‘People died for this vanity project that should never have gone ahead’
The Qatar World Cup has suddenly become jarringly real. Up until now it has been all about the dodgy dealing that led to the tournament being diverted to the desert, the barbaric lack of care for the workers that built the venues and the hosts’ medieval take on what 21st century inclusion looks like.
But the unveiling of the squads has moved the tournament on into a football dimension.
Now we can forget about all that awkwardness and crack on. It is tempting – what is sport if it isn’t an escape from real life, after all?
It’s an imperfect world that we inhabit. So what if the venue is a little left-field, a football World Cup is in the end about football.
As FIFA president Gianni Infantino would have it, let’s concentrate on the game now.
The World Cup will be great because all World Cups are great, but it doesn’t legitimise this.
People died for this event to go ahead. Take your pick from 37 between 2014 and 2020 on World Cup construction and infrastructure projects – the official Qatari version – or 6,500 in the decade after the tournament was awarded in 2010, which was the number a Guardian investigation came up with. It is true that conditions have improved for migrant workers with the abolition of the feudal kafala labour system and the imposition of a minimum wage but only after the outcry at the human cost associated with the tournament.
The fight for a $440million (£377m) compensation fund for the families affected – equal to the prize money that will be doled out at the end of the tournament – and the establishment of a migrant workers’ centre in Doha and the representation that would bring goes on.
This is a vanity project for a tiny but fantastically rich state that should never have been allowed to happen.
The technical report presented to FIFA basically said as much in the run-up to the grubby vote in 2010 that set the train in motion.
For some reason the delegates chose to overlook the evidence and side with Qatar as opposed to the United States, Australia, Japan or South Korea.
As Mrs Merton might have said: “So what first attracted you to the millionaire Qataris?”
Netflix’s revealing new series ‘FIFA Uncovered’ has an interview with Phaedra Almajid, who worked on Qatar’s bid.
She claimed to have been present at a meeting when three African representatives were each offered $1.5m (£1.29m) in exchange for their support.
The money was supposedly meant for football projects but, as she put it, “where it ended up, I have no idea”.
The FBI investigation and the bust that followed into the depth of the corruption on the FIFA executive board, which led to Russia landing the 2018 World Cup and Qatar this one, was likened to a mafia or drugs cartel probe.
But the awarding of the tournament, as with Russia last time around, stood. And it will be here in 10 days’ time.
If you are a gay football fan – with Qatar’s anti-homsexuality laws and the backward outlook of its World Cup ambassadors – the venue is not exactly welcoming.
If you are a female football fan you may also harbour reservations, given the second-class status of women in Qatari society. But you do not need to be oppressed to at least pause for thought before the festival gets underway.
For once, Infantino’s predecessor Sepp Blatter, a Qatar-sceptic, is on the right side of the argument.
It is green for go for the miracle of the desert World Cup and the stars of the game will deliver gripping drama and wonderful theatre over the coming weeks. But that does not make it right.