On 24 November, the European Parliament suggested that FIFA and Qatar compensate for the widespread abuses suffered by migrant staff in the structure of the 2022 World Cup infrastructure and the organisation of the games. In doing so, they joined migrant staff and their families, the global audience and a growing number of football associations, sponsors, political leaders, athletes, human rights organisations and industry unions who have supported this call.
While acknowledging Qatar’s labour reforms, the European Parliament’s solution highlighted how an existing pay system, implemented only in 2020, has failed to compensate for widespread wage abuses since Qatar’s questionable FIFA variety in 2010 as World Cup host. In addition, the hasty attribution across Qatari government of the deaths of thousands of migrant workers from “natural causes” without proper investigation has made their families ineligible for compensation.
In the debate leading up to the vote, parliamentarians criticized Qatar’s poor human rights record on labour and other human rights, adding violations of freedom of expression, women’s rights and LGBT rights. The following text also condemned the involvement of European corporations in violations of migrant workers’ rights in preparation for the 2022 World Cup.
The European Parliament’s complaint follows repeated missed opportunities by the Qatari government and FIFA to address and redress human rights abuses.
On 1 November, Qatar’s Minister of Labour explicitly rejected the call for reparations to migrant staff who have suffered, praising national reforms as sufficient; Testifying before the European Parliament two weeks later, he did not publicly set about paying compensation, while he seemed open to having the existing fund retroactive.
FIFA has drawn additional complaints by urging football associations to focus only on football rather than engaging in “political or ideological battles” and has threatened to punish on the pitch players who even interact in symbolic moves such as wearing armbands in solidarity with LGBT rights. On the eve of the tournament, FIFA President Gianni Infantino delivered a press conference replete with “whataboutism” and glaring inaccuracies about the scope and effectiveness of existing pay plans for aggrieved staff and their families.
For now, it is transparent to FIFA and Qatar that their clumsy and brutal attempts to silence critics are doomed to the opposite effect. thousands of families who lost their main economic support to make the tournament possible.
Will they do it in spite of everything?