fifa’s own goal
Did anyone else watch England’s international friendly against the Ivory Coast earlier this week? A solid enough performance but what a snoozefest of a match and, if it was intended to fire-up the enthusiasm for this year’s World Cup, it has to be said to have failed miserably. Mind, perhaps that’s exactly what this once-blue-riband tournament actually deserves.
Over a decade ago, FIFA’s president, Sepp Blatter, announced the incredulous decision to award the world’s largest and most prestigious sporting tournament to Qatar. Fellow bidders – US, South Korea, Japan and Australia – looked on in disbelief as the honour went to the smallest nation (330,000 citizens) ever to host the event, with no footballing tradition, no suitable stadia and with a team of relative minnows that had never even qualified for a World Cup. Furthermore, the tournament could not be played in the traditional season of summer as the mercury consistently tops forty degrees. WTF was their understandable reaction.
A former British protectorate which gained independence in 1971, Qatar has been a place of transformation since the discovery of oil in the late 1930s. Today it is the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas and, with it gleaming skyscrapers and high net worth beach resorts, is vying with the likes of Dubai, Bahrain and UAE as THE place to be seen in. On this journey, the country has sought to cultivate a welcoming reputation for openness and the founding of Al Jazeera has indeed attempted to take the Arab world to task on many issues. The TV station, however, never criticises its host state as it’s illegal to do so! The omnipotent emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and his ‘consultative council’ of families who have lived in Qatar since before 1930 would not tolerate such behaviour.
Ever since the announcement, accusations of corruption have swirled around the bidding process. It is alleged the disgraced FIFA vice president Jack Warner was paid $2m together with a further $5m to other FIFA officials for their tacit support. Needless to say everyone denies everything but almost thirty people have now been convicted, Blatter and his former colleague, Michel Platini, have been forced to stand-down and are now indicted on fraud charges. The disgraced Blatter now describes the decision as a “mistake” but it will go ahead nonetheless as some $300bn (yep, you read that right) has been spent on stadia and related infrastructure.
Qatar relies almost entirely on migrant labour and the execution of this massive project (no pun intended) is believed to have cost the lives of more than 6500 such subcontinent workers. Largely employed on the country’s ‘kafala’ system of sponsorship, employees are specifically tied to one employer and, should they want to change or even leave the country, they have to have the written permission of the current employer. A modern-day version of indentured slavery if ever there was one. Thankfully, following external condemnation, a couple of years ago the system was reformed a little to allow migrants to leave the country, and in some instances to change jobs, without such permissions. It also has to be said that it has introduced a minimum wage but it’s telling that construction has now largely been completed. Countries such as Norway, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands were particularly vocal whereas we were noticeably silent, with only David Beckham breaking cover to sign a £150m personal deal to be a tournament ambassador.
It is said that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. This year’s tainted World Cup bears witness to this fact in that both FIFA and Qatar are individual fiefdoms where absolute power has corrupted absolutely. I don’t think I’ll be tuning in.
