THE Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup, the most prestigious soccer tournament in the world, is being held in Qatar this year. From the moment Qatar was selected as the host country, the 2022 World Cup has drawn immense attention from soccer fans around the globe because it is the first World Cup to take place in an Arab nation. Just as the official slogan “Expect Amazing” underscores, there are high expectations for this year’s World Cup, with Qatar spending more than $220 billion in preparation for the prestigious competition[1]. However, expectations come with controversies, and the Qatar World Cup met a lot of criticism and doubt before the event even kicked off.

The FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar 

   The World Cup is an international soccer tournament of men’s national soccer teams held every four years by FIFA, the highest governing organization in soccer. Qatar is hosting the 22nd World Cup this year from November 20 to December 18[2]. Thirty-two national teams—including South Korea—will play in the tournament, which will take place in eight different stadiums across the central eastern regions of Qatar like Lusail Iconic Stadium and Al Bayt Stadium[2]. After Japan and South Korea hosted the 2002 World Cup, this will be the second World Cup to be held in Asia and the first in the Middle East[3]. Therefore, this year’s tournament symbolizes how soccer is a sport that can be enjoyed by everyone around the world with no discrimination against specific regions.

Bribery scandal

   In 2010, Qatar clinched the rights to host the 2022 World Cup by winning a majority of the vote from 22 members of the FIFA Executive Committee, FIFA’s decision-making assembly, beating bids from rivals like the United States and South Korea[4]. This was an astonishing outcome since many people considered the United States to be the clear favorite before the vote took place. The United States had the necessary infrastructure as it hosted the 1994 World Cup, and it also had enough capital to fund the competition with the $1.02 billion in revenue from the U.S. professional soccer league Major League Soccer (MLS)[4]. Yet, the United States lost its bid to a small desert state with significant disadvantages for hosting the World Cup. With a size of 4,471mi2, Qatar is smaller than the state of Connecticut by about 20%[5]. Moreover, most of the land there is barren, sandy, plain, and lacks any infrastructure—the reason why most of Qatar’s 2.8 million residents live in the capital city of Doha[5]. Therefore, aside from Doha, Qatar lacked many of the stadiums, hotels, and highways required to stage a World Cup. Qatar also experiences long summers with extreme dry heat, where temperatures rise above 45°C[6]. Hence, FIFA had to move the World Cup from summerto November for the first time in history, which met strong opposition from most competing nations. For example, most domestic soccer leagues in Europe like the English Premier League (EPL) were still mid-season in November, forcing month-long interruptions and changes in competition agendas[7]. 

   After announcing the result of the Executive Committee’s vote, FIFA President Sepp Blatter explained the decision by emphasizing how“the Middle East and Arabic world have been waiting for a long time[6],”and that it was crucial for the World Cup to be held in new areas for the development of soccer as a sport. While Blatter made such excuses, Qatar was subsequently accused of paying off FIFA officials to secure backing for its bid. Hassan Al-Thawadi—the bid campaign leader in 2010 and now Chairman of the 2022 World Cup—called the bribery accusation “inherently false[8].”Regardless, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) started investigating the case after the United States’ suspicious bidding loss. 

   In 2021, after years of indictments, the DOJ announced that representatives working for Qatar had bribed FIFA officials in 2010 to secure hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup[9]. In an official statement, the DOJ disclosed that it discovered a FIFA document alluding to the bribery scheme with the names of three South American officials in the FIFA Executive Committee who received payments to vote for Qatar—including Julio Grondona of Argentina, Nicolas Leoz of Paraguay, and Ricardo Teixeira of Brazil[10]. Aside from these officials, Blatter himself was under criminal investigation by Switzerland’s Attorney General for a suspected “disloyal payment” from Qatar, but he was acquitted in July of this year[11]. Surprisingly, Blatter seems to have changed his position as he recently stated in an interview that the Qatar World Cup was a mistake and that he had made a bad choice[11].

   FIFA choosing Qatar in 2010 can be seen as a self-serving move since hosting the tournament in the Middle East gives FIFA a chance to expand its market share in a region that is spending significant amounts of money on soccer. Not only did the Middle East invest nearly $30 billion on domestic soccer leagues, but it is also slowly dominating European soccer as countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar currently own numerous popular soccer clubs in Europe[12]. One such club is the French soccer team Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) owned by Qatar Sports Investments (QSI)—a private shareholding organization in Qatar. Since QSI took ownership of the club, it has spent more than $1.17 billion on recruiting superstar players, demonstrating the Middle East’s economic power that FIFA hopes to borrow with this year’s World Cup[12]. 

Alcohol sales banned at the Qatar World Cup

   One of the concerns with hosting the World Cup in Qatar is giving decision-making power to an autocratic nation. This leads to issues like non-transparency in dealing with businesses, as shown by Qatar’s decision to ban alcohol sales during the World Cup. As a conservative Muslim nation, Qatar tightly regulates alcohol sales, and only tourists can buy and consume alcohol within licensed hotels and restaurants[13]. As Qatar promised in September to permit fans to buy alcohol at World Cup soccer matches three hours before kickoff, soccer fans expected exemptions for purchasing drinks in fan zones or on stadium concourses during the World Cup[13]. However, just two days before the tournament began, FIFA made an official statement that it would “remove sales points of beer from Qatar’s FIFA World Cup 2022 stadium perimeter[13].” After the announcement was publicized, some soccer fans expressed their frustrations, including 21-year-old student Arnov Paul-Choudhury. In an interview with CNN, Paul-Choudhury said, “It’s the World Cup, you need to be able to drink around the stadium. I just don’t think they’re doing the right things to attract fans[14].” The Football Supporters’ Association (FSA)—the national representative body for soccer fans in England and Wales—has also condemned Qatar and FIFA for their last-minute “U-turn” to restrict alcohol sales during the World Cup, thus demonstrating a total lack of communication and clarity between fans and the organizing committee[14]. 

   This sudden alcohol ban is significant because the beer brand Budweiser is one of FIFA’s biggest partners, paying around $75 million for their sponsorship agreement[15]. In reaction to FIFA’s sudden decision to suspend alcohol sales during the World Cup, Budweiser tweeted, “Well, this is awkward,” and heightened the possibility of taking legal action against FIFA for making a major breach of the sponsorship contract[15]. Ben Peppi, the Head of Sports Services at the law office Jones Maidment Wilson (JMW) Solicitors stated that FIFA’s last-minute decision would be greatly damaging as “brands will be treading very carefully now around FIFA for future tournaments[15].” Current and future sponsors will now be reluctant to partner with FIFA due to the fear that FIFA will breach that contract easily.

Abuse of migrant workers

   Breaching brand deals and disappointing fans pale in comparison to other criticisms that the media and public have aimed at Qatar and FIFA with this year’s World Cup—namely, the abuse of workers who built the infrastructure for the tournament. Any country that wishes to host the World Cup has to meet FIFA’s strict infrastructure standards: not only must the host nation have at least 12 stadiums with a minimum capacity of 40,000 to 80,000 attendees throughout the country, but it should also have an airport with a minimum capacity of 1,450 passengers per hour and 72 base camp hotels for teams and referees nearby each stadium[16]. With Qatar originally lacking these infrastructures, the country began building seven stadiums, a new airport, a metro system, a series of roads and about 100 new hotels to meet the requirement[17]. 

   According to the Qatari government, 30,000 foreign laborers were hired just to build the new stadiums, and most of them came from Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and the Philippines[17]. In 2021, The Guardian revealed shocking statistics that 6,500 of these migrant workers had died since Qatar won the World Cup bid, prompting much criticism from human rights organizations. In response, the Qatari government called The Guardian’s report “misleading,” stating that not all of the recorded deaths were of people working on World Cup-related projects. Instead, the government argued that its accident records show how there were only 37 deaths among laborers at the stadium construction site, with only 3 of them being “work-related[16].” However, the International Labor Organization (ILO) believes the Qatari government’s figures to be an underestimate because the government does not consider deaths from heart attacks and respiratory failure induced by poor working conditions as being “work-related[18].” 

   The media has exposed some of the problems migrant workers have faced in constructing the stadiums and other attractions. CNN reported that migrant workers have “faced delayed or unpaid wages, forced labor, long hours in hot weather, employer intimidation, and inability to leave their jobs[18].” In particular, long working hours with forced overtime in the hot weather took a toll on laborers,  who were unable to recover after the day’s work due to terrible living accommodations. In an interview with CNN, Natasha Iskander (Prof., Dept. of Urban Planning and Public Service, New York Univ.) explained that “conditions beyond the worksite augmented heat’s power to harm—things like poor sleep, insufficient nutrition or a room that was not cool enough[17].” With Qatar’s ability to host the World Cup standing on violating the basic rights of migrant workers, this year’s World Cup might set a dangerous precedent for future host nations with lacking infrastructure to follow Qatar’s path in exploiting desperate workers without adequate compensation in order to boost their own nation’s standing globally.

LGBTQ+ discrimination in 2022 Qatar World Cup

   Qatar’s dismal human rights record continues with the government’s long-standing homophobia. Qatar is one of 11 countries alongside Saudi Arabia and Iran where homosexuality is banned and could be punishable by death. With Qatar hosting the World Cup, issues related to LGBTQ+ rights have been aggravated, especially with Qatari soccer player Khalid Salman’s remarks in an interview with German television broadcaster ZDF[19]. Salman described homosexuality as forbidden and “damage in the mind,” intensifying LGBTQ+ soccer fans’ concerns about the conservative country’s treatment of their community[19]. In fact, according to Human Rights Watch—an international non-governmental organization that advocates human rights—Qatari authorities have, on a regular basis, arbitrarily arrested or mistreated individuals from the LGBTQ+ community[20]. Human Rights Watch has documented 6 cases of severe beatings and 5 cases of sexual harassment against LBGTQ+ individuals in police custody between 2019 and 2022[21]. Additionally, security forces in Qatar publically arrested people and unlawfully searched their phones based “solely on their gender expression[21].” For example, a Qatari transgender woman was arrested in public for wearing makeup[21]. As a condition for their release, security forces mandated transgender women detainees to take conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored behavioral healthcare center[22]. 

   After reports came out about the Qatari government’s abuses against the LGBTQ+ community, there were severe backlashes from LGBTQ+ rights activists and the larger public. For instance, Dario Minden, a German activist, told the Qatari ambassador at a human rights congress hosted by the German Football Association (DFV) that Qatar should abolish its penalties for homosexuality and should not host the World Cup until everyone is welcomed, regardless of their differences[23]. Similarly, in an interview with VOA, Qatari activist Dr. Nasser Mohamed stated, “I feel like there is a moment of urgency to…put something out there now to actually let people know that [Qatar] is not OK” to host the World Cup[23]. Moreover, certain celebrities also refused to perform at the Qatar World Cup’s opening ceremony to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community. British singer Dua Lipa announced via social media that she was pulling out of performing at the event until Qatar had “fulfilled all the human rights pledges it made when it won the right to host the World Cup[21].” The Australian national men’s soccer team also showed its support by releasing a video in October with the message that “universal values like dignity, trust, respect, and courage should define football values[24].”

   FIFA, howeer, is abetting Qatar’s human rights violations as it prohibited the captains of teams from England, Germany, and France from wearing an armband with the phrase “One Love” to protest Qatar’s laws against homosexuality[25]. The World Cup’s aim is to promote soccer to everyone around the world so that they can enjoy and support the sport. However, Qatar’s discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community is not only alienating LGBTQ+ fans, but is also solidifying Qatar as a country with limited regard for human rights.

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   Despite all the criticism following these controversies, Qatar is hoping that this year’s World Cup will become a turning point for the country and attract millions to the tiny, arid peninsula in the Persian Gulf. Pat Thaker, the Middle East and Africa Regional Director at the Economist Intelligence Unit, emphasized that “it is very, very important for [Qatar] to make [the World Cup] a huge success” as it will shine the spotlight on a country that has previously been viewed through a very dark lens[26]. In the midst of controversy and concerns, the historical 2022 World Cup has already kicked off, showing how human rights concerns are no match against the authority wielded by an  autocratic nation and a corrupt sports organization looking for money and prestige.

[1] Sportico

[2] Statista

[3] Nikkei Asia

[4] ESPN

[5] The Mirror

[6] NPR

[7] Diario AS

[8] CNN

[9] AP NEWS

[10] The New York Times

[11] CNN

[12] CNBC

[13] The Guardian

[14] CNN

[15] Forbes

[16] Aljazeera

[17] BBC

[18] The Guardian

[19] CNN

[20] Time

[21]  Human Rights Watch

[22] Alturi

[23] VOA

[24] COSMOPOLITAN

[25]PBS

[26] The Globe and Mail