Awareness emerges from World Cup
Full of tradition, pageantry and wonder, the World Cup spellbinds the globe every four years. It represents what all sports should be — a sanctuary from our woes and troubles, both personal and political. The athleticism, the dedication, the geometry of 11 athletes playing as one — all combine to produce the poetry we see on the field. It is sublime.
The U.S. men lost to the Netherlands, 3-1, on Saturday, knocking them out of the competition. U.S. fans were crushed by the missed opportunities in the game, but the match showed us the World Cup at its best. It was a shimmering display of grit and sportsmanship by both teams.
Sometimes, however, a rat lurks in the marbled corridors of the palace. Reality intrudes, and reality can be as ruthless as any striker. It may not be enough to ruin the games — the global obsession is too overwhelming for that — but it is enough to remind us that sports are not always the havens we expect them to be.
We are witnessing that dynamic in these games. The problem arose before the tournament started, with the selection of Qatar as the host country. Qatar, a country with a population of less than 3 million, boasts an impact on the global stage that belies its size.
FIFA, the international governing body for the sport, showed its insensitivity toward democratic ideals when it selected Qatar. Human rights violations abound in this oil-rich country, according to Amnesty International. Domestic laborers, for example, work 18-hour days without days off, according to human rights activists.
“Although Qatar has made important strides on labor rights over the past five years, it’s abundantly clear that there is a great distance still to go,” said Steve Cockburn, head of economic and social justice for Amnesty International.
Selected as the host in 2010, Qatar built infrastructure for the tournament at the expense of its migrant workers, with an estimated 400 to 500 dying in work-related deaths, according to a Qatar official.
The official — Hassan al-thawadi, the secretary general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy — revealed the figure to a British journalist in what some observers described as an “off-the-cuff ” remark.
It was a shocking admission, but the reality may be worse, with some activists placing the death toll as high as 800.
“It was a bad choice,” said Sepp Blatter, whose term as FIFA administrator ended in 2015 amid a bribery scandal. “And I was responsible for that as president at the time.”
How, then, did such an oppressive nation secure the rights to host the tournament? The answer, not surprisingly, is money. FIFA has earned an unprecedented $7.5 billion in revenue from four years of commercial deals linked to the World Cup in Qatar — $1 billion more
than the organization earned from the 2018 tournament.
“If wealth is power,” Forbes contributor Beth Greenfield wrote, “then the Qataris have some serious muscle to flex.”
As the games started, the banning of beer sales seemed to be the biggest controversy — a flap that seems quaint now. It was soon overshadowed by human rights abuses in Qatar and Iran. More than 300 Iranians have been killed in protests that began after the death of a Kurdish woman on Sept. 16, detained for allegedly violating Islamic Republic dress codes. Iranian soccer players expressed their disgust with the government — a remarkable display of courage in a country known to punish its dissidents.
“Iran won,” an Iranian said in a social media post after the U.S. men defeated Iran, 1-0, to reach the knockout round. “The Islamic Republic lost and was eliminated.”
If anything positive is to be gleaned from these games, it may be the spotlight it has shown on human rights abuses.
“I ask the conscientious people of the world to stand by us and ask their governments not to react with empty words and slogans, but with real action and stop any dealings with this regime,” Iranian activist Farideh Moradkhani said in a video statement.
The lesson is there for future World Cups.
Amid taint of this tournament, the spotlight turns to human rights abuses