Europe should boycott the World Cup 2022 in Qatar
SportsThe football World Cup 2022 is hosted by Qatar. A small but rich desert country without any football culture. However, that seems to be the smallest problem about placing a World Cup in that country.
Corruption, ignorance of human rights and constructing workers dying because of bad working conditions. It’s all a description of Qatar, where the football World Cup 2022 is about to be held. Should all those facts be ignored, and the World Cup be processed just like everything is okay?
In my opinion Europe needs to take a clear position against the World Cup in Qatar. More than has been done so far. The only right thing to do is that all European nations stay home. A common decision to boycott the World Cup.
It all started out in 2010 where Qatar very surprisingly won the vote, where an executive board of 22 members in the international football federation (FIFA) should decide whether the World Cup host should be Qatar or United States.
With the votes 14-8 Qatar won the hosting despite of the facts that the small but rich state didn’t have any football stadiums that would fit international standards, no football culture and the weather is way too hot to play football with up to 50 degrees Celsius during summer.
Homosexuals imprisoned
Another fact is that Qatar is ignoring human rights. In the 2018 report from Human Rights Watch it is described how Qatar discrimates different groups. Domestic violence or marital rape against women is not a crime, homosexuals can be imprisoned for having a relationship to one of the same sex and the penalty for having sex out of marriage goes from flogging to death penalty.
The decision by the members of the executive board was hard to understand. However, the result is now more understandable. Since the vote in 2010 FIFA has been accused of corruption. Accusations that made the FIFA-president Sepp Blatter step back in 2015 and is now serving a six-year ban from all football related activities. Furthermore, three of the voters had received over one million dollars bribe according to The Guardian.
The conclusion might be that the World Cup most likely end up in Qatar because of bribery and corruption.
1300 workers has died during construction
But as it wasn’t enough. With the whole world watching the construction of the stadiums and the infrastructure for the World Cup Qatar continues to ignore basic human rights. Qatar has hired in thousands of migrant workers to construct the needed facilities. A lot of them from Nepal and no less than 1300 Nepali workers died between 2009 and 2017 likely to be caused by heatstroke according to The Guardian.
Should we really keep looking away?
Some would say that it wouldn’t bring anything to boycott the World Cup. The World Cup would still take place, Qatar would continue to ignore human rights and that the Nepali workers died for nothing. However, a boycott would make a strong signal. It would be a signal to other states ignoring human rights, that they have to take human rights more serious. It would also cost Qatar a lot of money if television stations, fans and the most attractive nations stayed away – call it a punishment or a huge fine.
We can’t simply go to a World Cup that stands for some of the worst things in the Western world. Corruption, ignorance of human rights and people dying because of inhuman working conditions.
Europe should boycott the World Cup 2022 in Qatar.
Documentation links:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/nov/14/fifa-bribery-corruption-trial-qatar-2022-world-cup
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/qatar
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