As we watched a bemused-looking Lionel Messi being draped in a bisht ahead of the crowning moment of his glorious career, the buzz of a brilliant World Cup final quickly gave way to the reminder that this whole tournament was never about the football.
Messi was flanked by Fifa president Gianni Infantino and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, both of whom seemed keen to join the team photo, with Infantino in particular appearing to tell Messi exactly how he should celebrate. You know, as if Messi hadn’t already won 38 major trophies at club and international level, many of them as captain.
What an unedifying spectacle it was, whatever the custom. The Argentina shirt covered up in its moment of glory. But that was small potatoes in the discussion as to whether the whole jamboree was worth it, especially given the cost of human life.
The number of deaths among migrant workers remains a mystery thanks to the terrible documentation of such tragedies. The secretary general of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy (SC), Hassan Al-Thawadi told TalkTV earlier in December that he wasn’t clear on the exact number of fatalities.
“The estimate is around 400. Between 400 and 500, I don’t know the exact number, that’s something that’s being discussed,” said Al-Thawadi. “What I would say is one death is a death too many.”
However, the SC later tried to walk that number back by claiming Al-Thawadi was quoting the number for all work-related deaths across the country between 2014 and 2020 whether on World Cup sites or not.
Qatar World Cup chief executive Nasser Al-Khater told the BBC that questions over migrant worker deaths were ”a natural part of life”.
“We’re in the middle of a World Cup, and we’re having a successful World Cup, and this is something you want to talk about right now?” he exclaimed.
“Death is a natural part of life, whether it is at work, whether it is in your sleep. A worker died, our condolences to his family, but it is strange that is something you want to focus on as your first question.”
As the #FIFAWorldCup comes to a close, a reminder: unless FIFA + Qatar provide remedy for the unaddressed abuses suffered by migrants who built the tournament, they'll leave behind a legacy of exploitation and shame.
But Rothna Begum, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, explained that migrant workers had been badly mistreated throughout the World Cup project.
“Migrant workers were indispensable to making the World Cup 2022 possible, but it has come at great cost for many migrant workers and their families who not only made personal sacrifices, but also faced widespread wage theft, injuries, and thousands of unexplained deaths,” she said. “Many migrant workers, their families and communities are not able to fully celebrate what they have built and are calling on Fifa and Qatar to remedy abuses of workers that have left families and communities destitute and struggling.”
There is also the story of Abdullah Ibhais, who wasn’t given a fair trial and remains in prison for advising the SC that they should own up to their failure to pay striking workers in 2019.
On Friday Infantino claimed that this was “the best World Cup ever” but that completely overlooks the various concerns that the competition has raised.
This was the World Cup awarded by a Fifa Executive Committee most of whom were later banned, suspended and even indicted over corruption, some of it directly related to the choice of Qatar as host of the tournament.
There was the pressure put on teams to force their captains to wear Fifa-edition armbands rather than pro-LGBTQ+ ‘OneLove’ versions, the push behind which was due to Qatar’s Islamic Sharia law outlawing homosexuality. Days before his tragic death, US journalist Grant Wahl was barred entry to the stadium because his t-shirt incorporated a rainbow.
Infantino’s deranged speech at the beginning of the tournament in which he claimed “Today I feel Qatari, today I feel Arabic, today I feel African, today I feel gay, today I feel disabled” set the tone. Fifa and Qatar were only ever going to skirt around – even undermine – the real issues and run the whole thing how they wanted to anyway.
But let’s not pretend this is anything new. Back in 2013 people arriving in Brazil for the Confederations Cup, this writer included, were met with protests regarding the use of public funds to build white-elephant stadiums for the following year’s World Cup at the expense of healthcare and education. And in 2018 we had Infantino sidling up to Vladimir Putin, and we all know what has filled up the Russian president’s 2022 calendar.
In 2026 the World Cup will be held in Canada, Mexico and – notably – the USA, where the June 2022 reversal of the Roe v Wade ruling means pregnant women no longer have a nationwide right to seek an abortion. There is also ongoing civil disquiet regarding rights for black people following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin, while there are also serious misgivings about the treatment of migrant workers in the States.
It is right that Qatar’s various issues are highlighted. Alcohol bans are unimportant. Indeed, for many football fans the thought of being soaked in beer by loudmouth, anti-social contemporaries is no kind of fun. But the treatment of human life has to remain paramount.
Now that people have highlighted the issues Qatar has, the pressure cannot be released, neither on the 2022 host nor on those who will welcome the world in 2026 and beyond.
Arguably, this World Cup should never have happened how it did. Had the voting been above board it is hard to imagine the Qatari bid getting enough credence to challenge the submissions of the USA, South Korea, Japan or Australia.
But now that the Middle East has at long last held a World Cup, and the issues in the region have been cast into the spotlight, let’s not stop here. Keep holding Qatar accountable. Keep holding Canada, and Mexico, and the USA accountable. Keep holding your own nations accountable.
Football is supposed to be for good, right? That’s what made the World Cup final so great. We hoped that everybody across the globe was feeling the same elation and dejection. But the truth is that many people whose lives had been destroyed to put these games on will not have been sharing those highs and lows, and that’s why questions about deaths and mistreatment are not ‘strange’, they are necessary. This year, and every year.
