QATAR WORLD CUP WILL TEST SPORT’S POWER TO CHANGE WORLD
IT IS really going to happen. In 623 days, at 10 o’clock Irish time on a Monday morning, Qatar will contest the opening game of the World Cup at the Al Bayt Stadium. The biggest sporting event on the planet will get under way in a tiny gas-rich country on the Arabian Peninsula. More than ten years has passed since Sepp Blatter shocked the world by unfolding a piece of paper that revealed Qatar. Back then, 2022 seemed so far into the future, and the idea of playing the tournament in the desert so absurd, that most felt there would be a change of course. The World Cup would end up in the United States. Or Australia.
But after more than a decade of hand-wringing over the deaths of migrant workers, the questionable manner in which the bid was won and, in spite of Amnesty International issuing more than 240 documents and reports questioning their human rights infringements (more than a third of which are directly related to construction of World Cup infrastructure), the beautiful game has set out on the road to Qatar.
In keeping with the surreal nature of all this, Ireland make a strange pit-stop on their journey this Tuesday when they face the hosts in Hungary. In an effort to give Qatar some competitive games before the tournament, they were placed in Ireland’s qualifying group. But given that more than $500million has been invested into building their team and that they are current Asian champions, one wonders whether they really need the help.
There remains much unease within the game. Admirably, Norway have taken the lead on a possible boycott, even though they have their best team in a generation, spearheaded
‘WHEN THE FOOTBALL IS ALL OVER, WILL THESE REFORMS REMAIN IN PLACE?’
by the world’s best young striker in Erling Haaland. Their side protested prior to the kick-off of their qualifier against Gibraltar last Wednesday, a protest mirrored by German players the following evening.
‘It is a double-edged sword,’ says Lars Johnsen of Norwegian publication Josimar, who have been driving the boycott campaign. ‘Everyone is very excited by our talented side and having one of the best players in the world. But at the same time, there’s widespread support for the idea of boycotting the World Cup.’
What started as a grassroots campaign among supporters was taken up by former international defender Tom Hogli, a board member at Tromso. They were the first Norwegian club to voice their support of a boycott and now 14 of the 16 top-flight clubs, including Rosenborg, have backed the campaign.
‘The fact that corruption, modern slavery and a high number of dead workers are now at the core of the most important thing we have in football, the World Cup, is absolutely not acceptable,’ Tromso said in a press release. That started the ball rolling.
Norwegian football clubs are run by members, any one of whom can bring a proposal to be heard at the AGM. At the Norwegian federation’s Fotballtinget (national gathering) earlier this month, a commission was set up to examine the consequences of a boycott, with their findings to be heard at an EGM on June 20 when it will be put to a vote.
‘There is public support for this,’ Johnsen insists, saying that a recent report that 6,500 migrant workers have died in Qatar since 2010 has put this in the public consciousness in Norway. There was an opinion poll in one of our major newspapers this week and it saw 55 per cent supported the boycott, 25 per cent were undecided and only 20 per cent opposed it.
‘Only that we have such a good team at the moment and have a good chance of qualifying and doing well, the number in favour would be even higher.’
There have been campaigns in other countries. Denmark look set to become the first country to debate their participation in Qatar in national parliament after a fans group organised a public petition, while national coach Kasper Hjulmand has said he will support any Danish player who chooses to boycott.
A grassroots movement has started in the Netherlands, although Dutch captain Gini Wijnaldum brushed off a question about it earlier this week, while Germany’s ProFans alliance have asked their team not to play, saying it would be ‘the end of ethics and dignity to appear in a lavish football festival on the graves of thousands of migrant workers.’
QATAR have implemented some labour reforms. In August of last year, they introduced a minimum monthly wage of just over $200 while they have sought to improve conditions at the infamous labour camps which house migrant workers. But human rights campaigners say the reforms don’t go far enough.
‘We have never called for Qatar to be stripped of the World Cup,’ explains Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch.
‘We saw them hosting an event of this magnitude as an opportunity to put pressure on them to push through labour reforms and by extension, pressure on their not-sofriendly neighbours to push through similar reforms.
‘The eyes of the world will be on
Qatar until next November so we have to highlight this issue. But we are running out of time to ensure that reforms are implemented, and other issues are addressed.
‘So, things like the protest by Norway can only add to the pressure on Qatar to reform further.’
Within the Qatari government, there seems to be an acknowledgment that they must be seen to tackle the issue. ‘I think they know that if they don’t get a grip on this issue of labour camps and migrant workers in the next few months, it is going to completely overshadow the whole World Cup,’ says James Montague, a journalist who lived and worked in the Gulf region for more than a decade.
Even if conditions in the labour camps have improved for the migrant workers, another question is whether they will be sustainable and remain in place once the world’s attention is no longer on Qatar.
‘For those of us who believe that sport has the power to change the world and can be a positive influence, this World Cup is the acid test,’ says Simon Chadwick, Professor of
Eurasian Sport at EMlyon Business School.
‘The question will be once the World Cup is over, will these reforms remain in Qatar or will they go back to what once was?’
Chadwick was in Doha for both the 2015 world handball championships and the 2017 world track & field championships and, while neither event is of the scale or reach of a World Cup, there were clues as to how Qatar will act as host.
Organisers have already stated that LGBT+ rainbow flags will be permitted in stadiums and elsewhere during the event, despite homosexuality being illegal in the country. Activists are using the occasion to trigger social change in the deeply conservative Gulf state, but Chadwick says there are other areas where fans may run into trouble.
Alcohol tends to be a big part of the fan experience in any World Cup, reflected in Budweiser being one of the main sponsors. But things may be different in Qatar.
‘They have been looking at air-conditioned screened enclosures where fans might be able to drink beer,’ says Chadwick. ‘It is easy to obtain alcohol in Qatar, at a western chain hotel and there is an officially registered government store that sells drink.
‘But the idea of fans being merry and engaging in sing-songs as they do in other World Cups will not go down well. And in Germany, the tradition is to buy hot dogs with your beer but there will be no pork in Qatar. All of that will make for a very different experience for fans.’
Another issue is that there aren’t enough hotel beds to cater for the biggest sporting event in the world. Authorities are trying to get around this by developing glamping sites in the desert and selling rooms on docked cruise ships, while the recent easing of tensions between Qatar and the other Gulf states means some supporters will now be able to stay in Dubai.
‘The other issue is going to be water security. Qatar has no water, all of it is desalinated and at the moment, there is only one plant to desalinate sea water. There is talk of building another one, which will be needed, considering the amount of people who might come for the World Cup,’ says Chadwick.
ON the field Qatar have been one of the most improved sides in international football in the recent past, a result of a very deliberate policy from the authorities to cultivate a side which can make an impact at major tournaments.
The Aspire Academy was founded by Royal Decree in 2004 and they have lured coaches schooled at La Masia, Barcelona’s famous academy, including current national team manager Felix Sanchez, who was a youth team coach at Barca before moving to Qatar.
The Barca influence is all over the game. Xavi is manager of Al Sadd, the powerhouse of Qatari football, who play in a similar style to the great Barca team of which he was the midfield general.
‘Hundreds of millions of euros have been pumped into this project,’ Montague points out. ‘This has been
a long-term project, they have been thinking about this since they founded the Aspire Academy.
‘They have bought a second division side in Belgium, and second division side in Spain, which they are sending graduates from Aspire out to.’
Among the squad that will face Ireland on Tuesday, 18 of the players will have come through the academy including highly-rated striker, Almoez Ali, who was the top scorer in the 2019 Asian Cup.
Ali is an example of how the academy has worked. Born in Sudan, he moved to Qatar as a child and was brought into the Aspire Academy when he was nine.
‘It was because of Qatar that FIFA were forced to act on naturalisation rules,’ Montague explains. ‘In 2004, Qatar attempted to make Ailton, the Brazilian striker who was top scorer in Bundesliga with Werder Bremen, a naturalised Qatari by basically paying him. But FIFA stepped in and changed the rules.
‘So they have gone the route of Aspire Academy and “Football Dreams” academies around the world, mostly in Africa, but also in places like Honduras and Thailand, which are basically talent-mining operations.
‘In the squad of 24 they brought to Europe and which will play Ireland, I think nine were born outside the country, in places like Sudan, Ghana, Egypt, but they all came through the Aspire Academy.
‘With someone like Ali, he came to Qatar when he was six and has been at Aspire academy not long after, so in this day and age of fluid nationality, nobody can say that he is not a Qatari national.’
The prospect of millions being invested in talent-mining is another uncomfortable layer to the complicated web that is the 2022 World Cup. Almost forgotten now is how the country was awarded the tournament in the first place – 16 of the 22 FIFA officials who voted for Qatar’s bid have since been suspended, charged or imprisoned. But that stench of corruption is lost in the mists of time.
The chaos which will be created when it comes to fixture-planning and scheduling for European leagues will be another consequence of this winter World Cup but, as we near kick-off, all the concerns may dissipate as the action approaches.
Unless a team, or a group of players, take a proper stand, unless Norway’s boycott campaign comes to fruition, the show will just go on. Whatever happens between now and next November, one thing is for sure and it was summed up by FIFA President Gianni Infantino when he said it will be ‘a World Cup like no other was or ever will be.’