World sports opinion — the FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar may have been the most-watched sporting event in human history, with half the world’s population tuning in before the final on December 18. But behind the seven new stadiums and the gleaming metro system lies a body count of thousands of migrant workers, a labour system inherited from British colonialism, and a host nation that made homosexuality illegal while FIFA banned rainbow armbands. If that is not sportswashing, the word has no meaning.
By Maplestime Opinion Desk | Toronto, Ontario | December 2022
Sources: Democracy Now! | New York Times | Last updated: December 2022
Key Takeaways: Qatar World Cup Sportswashing
- Half the world’s population was expected to watch the Qatar World Cup — possibly the most-watched sporting event ever
- FIFA awarded Qatar the games in 2010 in a process suffused with corruption and bribery
- Qatar built 7 massive new stadiums, a metro system, 100 hotels, and over 100 practice fields — almost exclusively with migrant labour
- Thousands of migrant workers are believed to have died in the torturous, extraordinarily hot working conditions
- The kafala sponsorship system — a colonial-era British labour structure — tied workers to employers with virtually no rights
- Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, and FIFA banned the “One Love” rainbow armbands teams planned to wear
- Former pro player Jules Boykoff argued FIFA’s $42 million winner’s prize should be the bare minimum paid to workers’ families
This column originally appeared in Democracy Now! and is republished here for Canadian readers.
The Games Qatar Bought — And the Workers Who Paid
Regardless of whether one calls it soccer or football, the FIFA Men’s World Cup tournament in Qatar may be the most-watched sporting event ever. It was predicted that by the time the month-long tournament ended on December 18, half the world’s population would have tuned in. One million fans were expected in this small, scorching desert peninsula in the Persian Gulf to watch teams from 32 nations compete.
Since FIFA awarded Qatar the games back in 2010 — in a process suffused with corruption and bribery — planning and construction occurred at a frantic pace. Seven massive new stadiums, a metro system, new roads, 100 hotels, over 100 practice fields and more were built, almost exclusively by migrant labourers who work in Qatar with virtually no rights. The torturous, extraordinarily hot working conditions endured by workers are believed to have caused thousands of deaths.
Let that number sit for a moment. Thousands of people died so that fans could watch football in air-conditioned stadiums in the desert.
Qatar World Cup Sportswashing and the Colonial Roots of the Kafala System
Abdullah Al-Arian, history professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, told the Democracy Now! news hour: “Football goes back to the colonial days, when it was being introduced by British and French officials as a way of instilling discipline and ‘civilizing’ the local populations.”
Qatar’s treatment of foreign workers is another consequence of colonialism. The kafala system, Al-Arian explained, “was the kind of migrant labour governance structure… put in place initially by British colonial authorities at a time when they were trying to preserve their own interests.”
He went on:
“They wanted to tie all of the migrant workers to their sponsorship, meaning that their employer would dictate the extent to which they would be allowed in the country, for how long. Things like changing jobs were not permitted without the permission of the employer. There was no real protection over things like a minimum wage or even safety considerations… this was a system that was then inherited by all of the independent states in the Gulf.”
The colonial structure was not a relic. It was the operating system of the World Cup construction boom.
The Labour Camps — 50 Workers, One Toilet
In 2012, while in Qatar covering COP18 — that year’s United Nations climate summit — Democracy Now! interviewed Devendra Dhungana, a Nepalese journalist investigating working conditions for migrant workers from Nepal. World Cup construction had just begun.
“We visited the labour camps, and what we saw was just unbelievable,” Dhungana said.
“More than 50 migrant workers are living in the 12 to 14 rooms with very little facilities — no running water, no AC in several places. They are living in very squalid conditions… 50 people have to queue up in the morning to use one toilet.”
He concluded: “We expect to see more people will die working in the stadiums than the number of players playing in the Qatari stadiums.”
That prediction held. By the time the tournament opened, reporting from The Guardian and others put the migrant worker death toll across Qatar’s construction boom at 6,500 — a figure the Qatari government disputed, but one that became the defining statistic of the tournament’s dark side.
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Geopolitics at the Qatar World Cup — An Absolute Monarchy With U.S. Backing
Geopolitics also impacted the games. Qatar is an absolute monarchy. Like many dictatorships around the world, it enjoys the full backing of the U.S. government. Centcom, the U.S. military’s Central Command, has its forward headquarters just miles outside of Doha, at the Al Udeid Air Base. It is the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, and only about 150 miles from Iran.
A U.S. soccer team social media post depicted the Iranian flag without the emblem of the Islamic Republic, to show solidarity with women protesters in Iran. Iran responded by demanding the U.S. be ejected from the World Cup. Meanwhile, the Iranian team itself took a courageous stand, refusing to sing their national anthem, ostensibly in solidarity with the protesters back home.
The tournament was never just about football. It was a stage where every contradiction of the modern world order — dictatorships, protest movements, military alliances — played out in real time.
Homosexuality Is Illegal — FIFA Banned the Rainbow Armbands Anyway
The international athletes and tourists flooding Qatar also came into direct conflict with the ruling monarchy’s deep-seated intolerance. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar. On the eve of the games, FIFA banned “One Love” rainbow armbands that several teams were promising to wear to express solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.
Read that again: the governing body of world football threatened sporting sanctions against players who wanted to wear a rainbow. In the name of keeping politics out of sport, FIFA enforced the politics of the host dictatorship.
“We’re definitely seeing sportswashing, where political leaders are using the sports event to try to deflect attention from human rights,” said Jules Boykoff, a former U.S. Olympic and professional soccer player, on Democracy Now!.
“FIFA should… give some money to migrant workers and their families who haven’t been paid properly. Some of them have died, and they haven’t received proper compensation. So, if you win the World Cup, your team gets $42 million. That should be the bare minimum that should be then thrown in the direction of these families who have suffered so greatly because of the World Cup, that is giving so many people around the world so much joy.”
The Beautiful Game’s Ugly Ledger
In a recent op-ed on the World Cup published in the New York Times, Abdullah Al-Arian quoted Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who wrote: “soccer is the field of expression permitted by secret understanding between ruler and ruled in the prison cell of Arab democracy.”
Soccer is called “the beautiful game,” but the 2022 World Cup should serve as a reminder that for many in the world, the fight for human rights, workers’ rights, and equality is not a game. It is deadly serious.
Canada was there, by the way — the men’s national team qualified for the first time in 36 years. Alphonso Davies scored Canada’s first-ever World Cup goal. Canadian fans celebrated in the streets of Toronto and Vancouver while the stadiums they watched on television were built by men who died in the heat. Both things are true. That is the uncomfortable ledger of modern sport.
Maplestime will provide updates on FIFA accountability and migrant worker compensation efforts as announcements are made.
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Did you watch the Qatar World Cup — and do you think fans and sponsors who enjoyed the tournament share any responsibility for the workers who died building it, or is that just the price of the beautiful game? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Canadian soccer fan who thinks sportswashing is someone else’s problem.
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