2022 Qatar World Cup Scandal
The 2022 FIFA World Cup venue has been set for a tiny oil-rich country in the middle east known as Qatar. The decision for Qatar to be the hosting nation for the World Cup has sparked disagreements and debates across the world soccer community. Is this a huge mistake, or rather a major scandal? Many questions have been asked about this decision, however very few have been given straight answers. After all, we are dealing with some of the wealthiest people in the world, and everyone knows the elites are known to be somewhat invincible. This issue has gotten so out of hand there has been a number of criminal investigations and detainments linked to the granting of Qatar the World Cup. There is no doubt that Qatar’s winning of hosting the World Cup has sparked questions of corruption within the world’s largest soccer organization FIFA. The question is why though?
To understand why the choosing of Qatar as a host nation for the 2022 World Cup is such a big deal you must first understand how the host is decided. The decision is typically made about seven years in advance of the tournament so that the country has plenty of time to build stadiums and infrastructure needed to accommodate the mass amounts of fans that undoubtedly will come to support their country at the World Cup. The original deciding system has evolved over the years into an exhaustive ballot system which uses votes by FIFA’s congress. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with a country like Qatar hosting the world, there are some major issues once looking deeper into the matter. Qatar advocated for their hosting of World Cup 2022 by claiming they would be representing the Arab World, and a way to bridge the gap between the Western and Arab worlds. While in some ways this is a good point and will undoubtedly help that cause because the World Cup is the largest event in the world and brings people from all places to one spot. However, the first major problem with Qatar is the fact that worker’s rights basically are non-existent there. For years now there has been countless reports of labor abuse within Qatar especially related to the construction of buildings for the World Cup, and Qatar has noticed and vowed to reform. Even with the promise of reform Qatar has done nothing.
Eight massive stadiums, that is what is required to host the 2022 World Cup. Qatar only has one that is done completely, two more need expansion, and 5 have to be built completely. With Qatar being such a tiny country the have to enlist the work of foreigners. Here is where the worker’s rights violations begin. Foreigners are often promised much more than they actually receive to come help Qatar prepare for the World Cup, and an alarming amount have died doing so. Obviously, Qatar does not want people to hear about the deaths under their supervision, so instead they list the deaths as ‘natural causes’. If that is not enough, once the foreign help comes in their passports are quickly revoked causing them to be unable to leave Qatar, and for those that still have their passports, often times they do not want to return home because they fear they have not made enough money to support their families.
Another seemingly small issue to the average spectator, but massive to anyone who has played the sport will understand is the climate in Qatar. Located almost directly on the Tropic of Cancer, Qatar during the summer months is known to be brutally hot. A typical summer day in Qatar reaches around 108/109 Fahrenheit. That is borderline unplayable conditions for a sport like soccer. When the venue was first announced this was taken into consideration, and the solution was to move the tournament to a winter date. Well, this did not go over well with the rest of the soccer world because that is exactly when all the world’s major leagues are in season, which would ultimately cause leagues to stop in the middle just to play this tournament.
The initial vote itself is perhaps the most controversial topic in this whole fiasco. Two months before the actual vote two members of the FIFA executive committee were banned for requesting payment in exchange for their vote for Qatar. Fast forward to just a month before the vote when FIFA released their own technical report on Qatar, they described the venue as a “high operational risk” which that alone should raise red flags for all voters in the committee. On the day of the decision the vote took four total rounds to determine the ultimate host. It was these four rounds that seemed sketchy because there were signs of tactical voting and unusually high votes for Qatar. Not to mention Qatar beat out already well-equipped nations like the United States, Japan, and New Zealand. It is a combination of poor human rights, harsh climate, infrastructure, size, and corruption that make the decision of Qatar to host World Cup 2022 a major issue in the worldwide soccer community.