Qatar's bet on the World Cup

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transcription

This transcript was created with speech popularity software. Although it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the audio of the episode before quoting this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes. com if you have any questions.

From the New York Times, I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily. “

He almost watched the World Cup.

This month marked the beginning of the greatest occasion on the planet.

And enthusiasts are making their voices heard and cheering for their country at the world’s biggest sporting event.

– the World Cup.

Grab the ball and make it bigger in the middle, the first purpose of the World Cup!

This is a tournament that, in the end, has been followed by more than a part of the world’s population.

The 2’22 FIFA World Cup is Qatar.

It has been the subject of more than a decade of controversy:

It’s in Qatar. Being there.

No, I don't.

12 years ago, when Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup, there was a lot of criticism.

– because of its host, the small energy-rich country of Qatar.

They are hosting an event that is expected to draw more than a million spectators in person to a country the length of Connecticut.

Today I spoke to my colleague, Tariq Panja, about how they gave the Cup to Qatar and what price.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

It’s Monday, November 28. So, Tariq, you talk about football and sports for “The Times. “And you’ve been writing about the World Cup in Qatar since it was selected to host it. of all there is. So, how did it go?

It’s a surreal journey.

Welcome to Doha, the State of Qatar, your gateway to the world.

This country, in many ways, has been rebuilt around a month-long event.

Qatar, 2022.

And you have that feeling of going.

Where did he say he went?

Climb. Go up the escalator.

From the moment you arrive at Hamad International Airport, you walk through the terminal, everything looks very shiny, very new.

Do you know where the subway is?

The metro will be on the level.

Then we head to this metro –

But there isn’t much signage here for a subway.

– created, in many ways, to send enthusiasts to World Cup stadiums in this small country.

We have arrived at the apartment where we will spend next month. My colleagues from the “New York Times” and I are staying in a building and are the first guests.

Everything is new. The street is new. The construction is new. There is smell of new apartment.

It’s a bit like being on a movie set, that is, new logo.

They built everything from scratch to mount a World Cup.

OK, so there was all this new structure and preparation that went into this. How did it happen now that he is here in spite of everything?

Yes, so far it has not been the smoothest navigation. The course is a bit bumpy. And one of the biggest beer hot spots.

Beer?

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Qatar promised the world that, like all other World Cups, there would be beer here. It is a conservative Muslim country, and it did not win very well among the national population, as expected. It’s not part of their culture.

Right.

There’s that tug-of-war. But with a hundred days to go until the World Cup, FIFA and local organizers announced that there would be beer on the perimeter of the stadium. And then, all of a sudden, we begin to see this change.

A week before the tournament, the emir’s brother goes for a walk. He doesn’t like the look of those red Budweiser tents and asks to be moved. And then, 48 hours before the start of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, beer is banned.

These enthusiasts who have traveled thousands of miles, spent all this money, will realize when they get here that, no, it’s essentially, as far as stadiums go, a dry World Cup.

IT IS OK. So here we are, in 2022, at the biggest sporting occasion in the world, any alcohol. It’s pretty crazy. How did we get here?

This is how we are in 2009. La FIFA, the governing body of football worldwide, opens this festival to host the 2022 World Cup. And Qatar, this thumb-shaped peninsula next to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, makes a decision that it will have to fulfill. anything to be known globally, to have its place.

Yes, it’s rich. But you want anything to give it a wonderful reputation. Why not bid on the world’s most popular sporting event?

And he didn’t take himself seriously at first.

If you ask if Qatar has a chance to host the World Cup, everyone will say you’re crazy. You are crazy.

The country ranked slightly among football nations. Load somewhere.

That’s the problem. Qatar has no history. They have no infrastructure.

They had a type of stadium that would be of foreign level. But they would like several more.

The expenditure to build the 8 stadiums to host the occasion is expected to exceed $200 billion. Therefore, it surely makes no sense.

Well, I think it’s incredibly troubling for members of LGBTQ society.

And being gay is a crime in this country.

We welcome everyone. But, of course, we would like other people to respect our culture, our rules and our regulations.

Many football enthusiasts are gay. The thing –

It is a typical day in Qatar, now around 1:00 pm and the temperature is 124 degrees.

It’s devilishly hot. If you could think of a more absurd position to play the World Cup in June and July than Qatar, I would challenge you because that’s when the World Cup is played. There was nothing in that offer that would have made sense. thing, I think.

What will it mean for the region if the world’s largest event takes place in the Middle East for the first time?

Why organize a tournament in the Middle East?

Right.

So here they are, Qatar, in this that includes the United States of America, South Korea, Japan and Australia.

The winner of the 2’22 FIFA World Cup is Qatar.

[APPLAUSE]

And so, we have a result.

Thank you for believing in change. Thank you for believing in the expansion of the game. Thank you for giving Qatar a chance, and we may not disappoint you. You will be proud of us. You will be proud of the Middle East. And I promise you.

[APPLAUSE]

But, Tariq, why does Qatar need it? I mean, they’re totally ill-equipped to house it, as you point out. So why check it out to begin with?

There are two stories here when you look at this. One is the one described through Qatari officials when you ask them. They say, well, we had a national allocation to build Qatar. And even if we didn’t get the World Cup. , we would build all those things. We want a trendy country with the infrastructure that you have in the rest of the world, and that kind of acceleration. But if you ask other people, it’s a small country in a tough neighborhood.

Right.

Just because it’s in the region, there’s this rivalry between those other kingdoms. They are all fabulously rich. There are a limited number of palaces you can build. There are so many luxury hotels. But there is a World Cup.

And now the emirs of Qatar have had it. They have the first one. It’s Saudi Arabia.

Right.

It’s the United Arab Emirates Unidos. Es Bahrain. That’s ici. Et no one can take it away.

So it’s like a matter of prestige, basically, a kind of marketing assignment on your festival with other Gulf states.

Yes, and we saw the game as a vehicle for that in the region. So, next door, you have the United Arab Emirates, and you have “Emirates”, the airline, the shirts of all the major football groups in the European capitals. You have this tough Premier League Soccer team in Manchester owned by the brother of the UAE leader.

This is a team that has surely crushed all its opponents. So the game has been used as this vehicle. And there was this festival to exercise this comfortable strength through play.

And Qatar, for me, put the accelerator on that. They have the World Cup, nothing bigger.

Okay, then, Tariq, I understand why they need to organize the World Cup. But as you already told us, they have no infrastructure. So my question to you is: how did they get it?How did they win the auction?

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Well, publicly, they’ve spent more money than any other candidate country to host presentations, sponsor events, publicize their names. They invited the 22 men on FIFA’s executive committee who would vote in the elections to several visits to Qatar. They showed They were given air-conditioned stadiums that they would build. They hired world-famous former footballers, for example, Zinedine Zidane, the hero of the 1998 World Cup in France. They paid millions just to approve his offer.

Wow.

They threw the kitchen sink in terms of wealth to make their calling known. But the scenes, they were also intensely pressuring this organization of 22 men to convince them. And none of that translates into protests or announcements or anything like that. These are smoky rooms and meals and personal conversations. What can we do for you?

So basically, you’re saying they did it in an old-fashioned way, aren’t you?Corruption, buying those guys from FIFA.

Well, immediately, that’s where everyone turned.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Shortly after the World Cup was awarded here, allegations of corruption surfaced that FIFA officials had accepted bribes to vote for Qatar’s bid, which had been awarded to the World Cup.

This procedure is already in doubt.

Two members were suspended over accusations they had put forward to their votes.

Two of the voting members had been expelled for allowing their votes to be sold to undercover journalists. This is an organization of people who make high deals and who can buy. So what. . .

One whistleblower alleged that 3 members were put forward for voting across Qatar.

Everyone is looking to locate that smoking gun.

They were expected to abide by rules that protect the honesty of football and the integrity of the game.

— Former UEFA chief Michel Platini has been arrested by French police investigating Qatar’s awarding of the 2022 World Cup.

Reports after reports of bribes from those men have circulated in the European media.

This is, in fact, the fraud world cup.

But Qatar has flatly denied all this for all these years.

When other people ask, how did you win the World Cup?The simplest answer, and I guarantee it and promise you, is not an arrogant statement. We were the deal.

So what-

Prosecutors have revealed new main points about alleged bribes paid to members of FIFA’s executive committee to secure their vote for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.

There’s a curious detail in an American indictment similar to corruption in soccer.

The presidents of the South American governing body at the time, CONMEBOL, and former Brazilian Federation President Ricardo Teixeira won bribes to vote for Qatar in 2022 –

He said 3 of the South American voting members had won cash to elect Qatar. And it’s the closest we’ve had to a primary authority confirming our worst suspicions, that bribes were paid and that Qatar was the winner.

What we can be sure of is that most of the committee members who made this resolution have been charged, banned, or accused of allegations of corruption or wrongdoing.

IT IS OK. So, at this point, it turns out that Qatar bribed to host this World Cup. But at the end of the day, they gave it to him, didn’t they?That’s it. So what did they have to do to make this happen?

Well, they went into a frenzy of intense construction, as few would have seen. This is a 12-year procedure to reinvent an entire country. Yes, it’s small. But it is a reconstruction of a nation.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

We will be back. OKAY. So, Tariq, how does Qatar attempt this far-fetched feat?

Well, I think after taking a big sip, oh, now we’re going to have to do this, they have to figure out how they’re going to build an entire country. It involves the construction of seven stadiums in the desert. It is a consultation of construction loads of kilometers of road. It’s about building sewage systems, dozens of hotels, a new subway system, a port. Whatever you can think of, this country needed to be built.

And how are they going to fare when you have a family population as small as this?The World Cup final stadium in Lusail has 80,000 spectators. If you fill it 4 times, that’s pretty much every Qatari citizen in the world.

Oh, dear. Every citizen.

Every citizen. And around this area, there are other poor people on the other side of the water who are desperate to work. These are other people who live day to day with few job opportunities where they are, especially in South Asia, in parts of West Africa like well, in the Philippines.

So you have this country with great ambition facing desperate poverty. And thousands of employees from those countries are being dragged to Qatar by force of necessity.

Mm.

Now, Qatar’s population has grown, not far from doubling, from the time they made an offer in 2009 to that same period in 2022. This population accumulation is due only to the lack of personnel to build this country. In total, about 85 to 90 consistent with percent of this country is made up of migrant personnel.

Wow.

And, you know, you’re talking about other people making less than $10 a day in one of the richest countries on the planet. They get up very early in the morning, occasionally before dawn. They will get on the buses and take them to the paintings. Sites. They will do 8 to ten hours in those places, making the hardest paints in the most difficult conditions. Do not make the temperature rise to 50 degrees in summer.

So more than a hundred Fahrenheit.

Yes, and then they’re going to do that six days a week. And they are the army that will build this country. And that’s what they’ve been doing all this time.

IT IS OK. So, to recap here, Qatar wants to build all those stadiums, all those infrastructures, roads, even hotels and buildings, to effectively host the World Cup. And they don’t have the people. So they bring immigrants, like many other countries in the world, right?

Mm-hmm.

The United States has done so as well. Many countries do. But it’s frequent and hard, often, in the Gulf. So what do we know, at this point, about how it happened in the end?I mean, what happened to those migrants?

We’ve noticed stories of lousy accommodations, men crammed into tiny spaces, without air conditioning.

[SPEAKS NON-ENGLISH]

It’s too hot. My shoes were full of sweat. There was no electricity or food. We had nothing.

We saw other people running in the desert under the scorching sun, suffering convulsions, dizziness. We have heard stories of young men of running age found dead in their beds, dying at night. One of the most common reasons seems to have been respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.

Soccer’s governing body, FIFA and the Qatari government have put inspections of the structure’s sites in place. But. . .

Qatar still brought this rule that during the summer months, between a few hours in the afternoon, the works must stop. But he was late.

When he left for Qatar six months ago, she was his wife. Today she is his widow.

What we do know is that thousands of those who have been to Qatar have died.

“The Guardian” also reports that last year, Nepalese migrants in Qatar were dying at the rate of one every two days until –

A report via The Guardian said 6,500 have died in Qatar since 2010.

Therefore, according to some reports, thousands of other people died during the construction of this World Cup. I mean, it’s a devastating number.

Yes, and it’s not just that. It’s also the contractual appointments those other people have. They are part of the other side of the Gulf, at least at the beginning of this assignment in Qatar, of what is called the kafala system, which links a migrant employee to an employer. . And they would be at the mercy of that employer.

So they weren’t paid what they deserve. They had no one to complain about. And they couldn’t even leave the country if they wanted to. They deserve to be allowed to leave Qatar.

Tariq, how has the rest of the world reacted to those conditions?I mean, what are other people saying?

A world cup on the exploitation of labour.

In a new report released today, Amnesty says some abuse the amount of forced labour.

We’ve noticed very, very much, human rights teams on this in recent years.

Amnesty International told the BBC that football associations want to start now with the situation of migrant staff.

And this scrutiny point has caught the attention of some of the European nations at the World Cup, for example.

Ten European football associations, along with England and Wales, say human rights are universal and everywhere.

They found themselves under pressure: Germany, Britain, Denmark, countries where the verbal exchange on human rights is as reasonable as possible.

Some have questioned whether, from a moral standpoint, the World Cup goes ahead in a country with such a history of turning a blind eye to abuse.

And it’s not just about migrant workers. It also deals with Qatari dating and legislation related to homosexuality.

Activists in the UK say they don’t think anyone from those communities deserves to see the World Cup in Qatar.

Calls for boycotts have grown.

And if you talk about this all the time, how can you, as a nation, with a clear conscience, send your football teams to this World Cup?

So it seems, Tariq, that Qatar is not only under pressure for its human rights record, but that countries heading into the World Cup are also under pressure from their own populations. his technique to LGBTQ issues.

So that tension has been there. But if they did anything, show a great position in Qatar, disappoint their hosts and could threaten to be sanctioned by FIFA for a tournament they have been in for 4 years. It’s the culmination of a player’s career, in many ways. There is nothing bigger than the World Cup.

So, on the one hand, you have this national audience that wants you to stand up for the values that they think are important. On the other hand, it’s everything your career has built. So, what we’ve had are efforts to almost take a position, I would say.

In Denmark, for example, the public and the media have opposed this World Cup. The shirt will be black, the color of mourning.

Mmm.

And then there’s this assignment of seven European countries for their captains to wear armbands with the word “OneLove. “And on a giant scale, wearing a bracelet might not seem like a demonstration of defiance. But as far as FIFA is concerned, it’s a step too far.

These groups came to Qatar, and FIFA said, I’m sorry, we’re going to let you do that. We will consider sports sanctions against team captains who dare to wear this armband. And as a group, they gave in.

Wow. So even the bracelet too.

It’s true.

Has the bad press affected Qatar? I mean, especially, as you said before, one of the goals of that was its position on the global stage. So it probably wasn’t smart for that reputation, because of the prestige they sought so much.

No, global headlines have wreaked havoc on Qatar. The kafala formula I described, for example, Qatar is one of the first, if not the first, in the region to abolish it. He announced a minimum wage: $275 per month total.

Mmm.

They have an insurance policy for wages that have been stolen. But the application, and to be great, has been spotty.

Mm-hmm.

You can have all those rules. But the app wasn’t there. So he suffered again. But Qatar would say, look, we did those things. Why are you still attacking us?

Why don’t we get any credit for the reforms we made that our neighbors don’t have, for example?We do more than anything else. Why can’t this also be part of the story?

And I communicate them, they feel unjustly slandered, to the point of closing their doors.

What do you mean?

With that, I mean, okay, we’ll never convince you. So, let’s even check now. Whatever we do, it will be enough.

Qatar has spent more cash on this tournament than any other country on any type of event besides the Olympics. It spent $220 billion.

Angry.

I think they thought, look, we’re going to spend over $200 billion to build the party in the world. So why are our hosts so ungrateful?

Mmm.

You have the emir, Sheikh Tamim Al Thani, addressing lawmakers here in Qatar, where he says no country that has hosted a sporting event has been attacked in the same way as Qatar. And you have other ministers in this country who claim that racism has played a role here. And the feeling of bitterness of the Qataris.

How have they reacted now that the World Cup is underway?

OK-

I’ve been quiet the last few months.

Before the start of this World Cup, media from around the world were brought to an auditorium to meet with FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

Today, I Qatari.

And it’s an impressive 90 minutes.

Today I am gay.

I’ve covered a lot of press meetings with FIFA presidents, but nothing like that.

Today I feel like a migrant —

He necessarily in Qatar’s defense rate.

“Because I know what it’s like to be discriminated against.

He compared his experience as a red-haired boy in Switzerland, an immigrant from an Italian family, to, apparently, the fate of migrant staff and homosexuals in Qatar and the Gulf in general.

I bullied because I had red hair. And I had those reds, what do you call them?-

Freckles

Forgive me?

Freckles

Freckles? You see, I don’t even know the term.

He necessarily opposed European and Western culture:

In Europe we are our borders definitive.

— necessarily that they have no right to criticize such people, given the ancient context of your countries and continents.

I think for what we Europeans have done for the last 3,000 years in the world, we apologize for the next 3,000 years before we start teaching ethics to people.

So you have the status of FIFA president and you send all that criticism that we’ve talked about to the West, essentially saying, back down, right?Leave Qatar alone, so another strange moment at this World Cup.

It was the highest high-profile tournament I’ve ever covered. And I’ve been doing this for up to two decades. That’s not a World Cup.

I mean, the proposal to draw so much attention to itself for Qatar was to occupy this area as a player on the world stage. But on the other hand, it gets all that negative attention. Their human rights disorders stand out. And I guess my question is, do you think at the end of the day, Qatar will say we got enough out of this World Cup to deserve all this negative attention?

I think it’s going to be very difficult for them to leave this moment feeling like winners. However, he bought all this attention himself. He discovered the shortest shortcuts to position himself at this top point of the world.

Mmm.

The World Cup is here. The tournament is played.

yes.

The world’s most outstanding athletes are here, thousands of media professionals here. Millions of hours of television are broadcast to the world from this small desert peninsula.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

So, from that point of view, they were given what they wanted. We have been here for a month and this football tournament is being played. They hope that the goals scored in those stadiums, those magical moments, will be, at least, for this month, what is transmitted from Qatar. And the backdrop will be your country and those beautiful stadiums that were built through those migrant workers.

They hope this backdrop will be remembered as the stadium where Lionel Messi scored the winning goal in the World Cup final, the same one in which Nepal’s Ram Prasad lost his life.

Let’s talk about football. We have 32 big groups – 33. We have team one, referees. We have beautiful stadiums. We have a city that needs to welcome the world. Let’s celebrate, please, please, and hopefully we can bring smiles to others around the world.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Tarik, thank you.

Ok thanks.

Since the start of the World Cup a week ago, millions of other people around the world have watched. On Friday, more than 15 million Americans tuned in to watch the U. S. play England, setting a record for most-watched men’s soccer. game in U. S. history U. S. And on Saturday, nearly 90,000 more people attended the Argentina-Mexico match, making it the largest crowd recorded at a World Cup in nearly three decades.

‘Ll.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Here’s what you know today.

[SPEAKS NON-ENGLISH]

Over the weekend, protesters angered by strict COVID-19 measures called on China’s tough leader, Xi Jinping, to step down. It was the most provocative eruption of public anger against the ruling Chinese Communist Party in years and delivered an unprecedented rebuke of Xi’s authority. .

The protests were triggered through a fatal chimney in a Chinese province. Firefighters tried to reach the scene, but another 10 people were eventually killed. The reaction raised questions about whether the victims were locked in their burning building due to COVID measures. China is the only primary country that continues to take ordinary measures to prevent the transmission of the coronavirus 3 years after the outbreak of the virus.

Public reaction in China has been wide and varied. On college campuses, academics held vigils, many holding blank sheets of paper in silent protest. In Hanghai, police used pepper spray to scare away protesters. But a few hours later, they returned. On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that the government in at least 8 cities, adding that the capital, Beijing, was struggling to quell the protests.

Today’s episode was produced by Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Rachelle Bonja, Stella Tan and Sydney Harper, with Jessica Cheung in attendance. It was edited by John Ketchum, Paige Cowett and Anita Badejo. It includes original music by Marion Lozano and Dan Powell and was designed by Chris Wood. Our theme song is through Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk from Wonderly. Special thanks to Doug Schorzman.

That’s it for “El Diario. ” My is Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

transcription

From the New York Times, I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily. “

He almost watched the World Cup.

This month marked the beginning of the greatest occasion on the planet.

And enthusiasts are making their voices heard and cheering for their country at the world’s biggest sporting event.

– the World Cup.

Grab the ball and make it bigger in the middle, the first purpose of the World Cup!

This is a tournament that, in the end, has been followed by more than a part of the world’s population.

The 2’22 FIFA World Cup is Qatar.

It has been the subject of more than a decade of controversy:

It’s in Qatar. Being there.

No, I don't.

12 years ago, when Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup, there was a lot of criticism.

– because of its host, the small energy-rich country of Qatar.

They are hosting an event that is expected to draw more than a million spectators in person to a country the length of Connecticut.

Today I spoke to my colleague, Tariq Panja, about how they gave the Cup to Qatar and what price.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

It’s a surreal journey.

Welcome to Doha, the State of Qatar, your gateway to the world.

This country, in many ways, has been rebuilt around a month-long event.

Qatar, 2022.

And you have that feeling of going.

Where did he say he went?

Climb. Go up the escalator.

From the moment you arrive at Hamad International Airport, walk through the terminal, everything looks very bright, very new.

Do you know where the subway is?

The metro will be on the level.

Then we head to this metro –

But there isn’t much signage here for a subway.

– created, in many ways, to send enthusiasts to World Cup stadiums in this small country.

We have arrived at the apartment where we will spend next month. My colleagues from the “New York Times” and I are staying in a building and are the first guests.

Everything is new. The street is new. The construction is new. There is a smell of new apartment.

It’s a bit like being on a movie set, that is, a new logo.

They built everything from scratch to mount a World Cup.

OK, so there was all this new structure and preparation that went into this. How did it happen now that he is here in spite of everything?

Yes, so far it has not been the smoothest navigation. The course is a bit bumpy. And one of the biggest beer hot spots.

Beer?

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Right.

These enthusiasts who have traveled thousands of miles, spent all this money, will realize when they get here that, no, it’s essentially, as far as stadiums go, a dry World Cup.

IT IS OK. So here we are, in 2022, at the biggest sporting occasion in the world, any alcohol. It’s pretty crazy. How did we get here?

Yes, it’s rich. But you want anything to give it a wonderful reputation. Why not bid on the world’s most popular sporting event?

And he didn’t take himself seriously at first.

If you ask if Qatar has a chance to host the World Cup, everyone will say you’re crazy. You are crazy.

The country ranked slightly among football nations. Load somewhere.

That’s the problem. Qatar has no history. They have no infrastructure.

They had a type of stadium that would be of foreign level. But they would like several more.

The expenditure to build the 8 stadiums to host the occasion is expected to exceed $200 billion. Therefore, it surely makes no sense.

Well, I think it’s incredibly troubling for members of LGBTQ society.

And being gay is a crime in this country.

We welcome everyone. But, of course, we would like other people to respect our culture, our rules and our regulations.

Many football enthusiasts are gay. The thing –

It is a typical day in Qatar, now around 1:00 pm and the temperature is 124 degrees.

It’s devilishly hot. If you could think of a more absurd position to play the World Cup in June and July than Qatar, I would challenge you because that is when the World Cup is played. There was nothing in that offer that would have made sense. thing, I think.

What will it mean for the region if the world’s largest event takes place in the Middle East for the first time?

Why organize a tournament in the Middle East?

Right.

So here they are, Qatar, in this that includes the United States of America, South Korea, Japan and Australia.

The winner of the 2’22 FIFA World Cup is Qatar.

[APPLAUSE]

And so, we have a result.

[APPLAUSE]

But, Tariq, why does Qatar need it? I mean, they’re totally ill-equipped to house it, as you point out. So why check it out to begin with?

Right.

And now the emirs of Qatar have had it. They have the first one. It’s Saudi Arabia.

Right.

It’s the United Arab Emirates Unidos. Es Bahrain. That’s ici. Et no one can take it away.

So it’s like a matter of prestige, basically, a kind of marketing assignment on your festival with other Gulf states.

This is a team that has surely crushed all its opponents. So the game has been used as this vehicle. And there was this festival to exercise this comfortable strength through play.

And Qatar, for me, put the accelerator on that. They have the World Cup, nothing bigger.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Wow.

So basically, you’re saying they did it in an old-fashioned way, aren’t you?Corruption, buying those guys from FIFA.

Well, immediately, that’s where everyone turned.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

Shortly after the World Cup was awarded here, allegations of corruption surfaced that FIFA officials had accepted bribes to vote for Qatar’s bid, which had been awarded to the World Cup.

This procedure is already in doubt.

Two members were suspended over accusations they had put forward to their votes.

Two of the voting members had been expelled for allowing their votes to be sold to undercover journalists. This is an organization of people who make high deals and who can buy. So what. . .

One whistleblower alleged that 3 members were put forward for voting across Qatar.

Everyone is looking to locate that smoking gun.

They were expected to abide by rules that protect the honesty of football and the integrity of the game.

— Former UEFA chief Michel Platini has been arrested by French police investigating Qatar’s awarding of the 2022 World Cup.

Reports after reports of bribes from those men have circulated in the European media.

This is, in fact, the fraud world cup.

But Qatar has flatly denied all this for all these years.

When other people ask, how did you win the World Cup?The simplest answer, and I guarantee it and promise you, is not an arrogant statement. We were the deal.

So what-

Prosecutors have revealed new main points about alleged bribes paid to members of FIFA’s executive committee to secure their vote for Qatar to host the 2022 World Cup.

There’s a curious detail in an American indictment similar to corruption in soccer.

The presidents of the South American governing body at the time, CONMEBOL, and former Brazilian Federation President Ricardo Teixeira won bribes to vote for Qatar in 2022 –

What we can be sure of is that most of the committee members who made this resolution have been charged, banned, or accused of allegations of corruption or wrongdoing.

Well, they went into a frenzy of intense construction, as few would have seen. This is a 12-year procedure to reinvent an entire country. Yes, it’s small. But it is a reconstruction of a nation.

[MUSIC IN PROGRESS]

We will be back. OKAY. So, Tariq, how does Qatar attempt this far-fetched feat?

Oh, dear. Every citizen.

So you have this country with great ambition facing desperate poverty. And thousands of employees from those countries are being dragged to Qatar by force of necessity.

Mm.

Now, Qatar’s population has grown, not far from doubling, from the time they submitted a bid in 2009 to that same period in 2022. This accumulation of population is due solely to the lack of personnel to build this country. In total, about 85 to 90 consistent with percent of this country is made up of migrant personnel.

Wow.

So more than a hundred Fahrenheit.

Yes, and then they’re going to do that six days a week. And they are the army that will build this country. And that’s what they’ve been doing all this time.

Mm-hmm.

So has the United States. Many countries are doing this. But it’s common and hard, often, in the Gulf. So what do we know, right now, about how it happened after all?I mean, what happened to those immigrants?

We’ve noticed stories of lousy accommodations, men crammed into tiny spaces, without air conditioning.

[SPEAKS NON-ENGLISH]

It’s too hot. My shoes were full of sweat. There was no electricity or food. We had nothing.

Soccer’s governing body, FIFA and the Qatari government have put inspections of the structure’s sites in place. But. . .

Qatar still brought this rule that during the summer months, between a few hours in the afternoon, the works must stop. But he was late.

When he left for Qatar six months ago, she was his wife. Today she is his widow.

What we do know is that thousands of those who have been to Qatar have died.

“The Guardian” also reports that last year, Nepalese migrants in Qatar were dying at the rate of one every two days until –

A report through “The Guardian” said 6,500 have died in Qatar since 2010.

So, according to some reports, thousands of people died during the construction of this World Cup. I mean, it’s a devastating record.

So they weren’t paid what they deserve. They had no one to complain about. And they couldn’t even leave the country if they wanted to. They deserve to be allowed to leave Qatar.

Tariq, how has the rest of the world reacted to those conditions?I mean, what are other people saying?

A World Cup on the exploitation of hard work.