The sight of Sepp Blatter re-emerging days out from the Qatar World Cup has been amusing. In a way, it’s sad that his comments came on the back of revelations that he was more than likely giving Qatar the World Cup as a gift.
The recent scandals around FIFA have been hard to watch for various reasons, cash in brown envelopes. Also, worst of all, the stories of immigrant construction workers without living wages dying in Qatar.
The common health concerns in Qatar are the potential for fatal accidents and other natural causes. The autopsies from these countries, including those from Qatar, are sent to Delhi, Dhaka, and Kathmandu, respectively.
When Qatar was brought up, Blatter reasoned that the country’s size made it difficult and that football is too big to allow problems like human rights violations to affect the World Cup. Well, maybe not for everyone in the world.
During Blatter’s Monday press conference, Associate Justice Domenico Figone asked one pertinent question: Gianni Infantino, the new FIFA president. That question was, “What is your job?” “I don’t work for the Qatar World Cup,” he said.
As of Tuesday night, no satisfactory explanation has come from FIFA. An organization is desperate to convince us that they have changed and can be trusted. The boss is stuck in the past, unable and unwilling to let his teams compete without fears about corruption.
Lionel Messi will finally find out whether he can deliver what the fans have hoped he would a World Cup victory. As for Brazil, similar questions must be asked. Will their new attacking options be enough to make history and bring the trophy home after 20 years?
Controversies always seize the spotlight during significant sporting events. But this World Cup is finding that it’s not immune.
Presidential hopeful and former Qatari footballer Khalid Salman made an anti-gay comment in an interview, saying it’s “damage in mind.”
Sometimes the interviewer would interrupt Salman and move on to a different topic.
Infantino stated that everyone is welcome in Italy, regardless of whether they are from the surrounding region. This statement was met with significant contradiction and controversy. It also has upset many people within the nation’s borders.
When Gary Neville asked Hassan Al Thawadi, Secretary General, on camera whether public displays of affection would be a problem for Qatar at this World Cup, Al Thawadi replied with a resounding no. The Supreme Committee holds that public displays of affection ‘are not part of our culture.’
Al Thawadi was all smiles as he joked with Neville during the Sky Sports documentary team’s sit-down interview. They were having a great time and didn’t have to prove much of anything.
Not sure where to start when it comes to immersing yourself in the culture of your audience? Start with a tour. An hour up the road at the suffocating, stinking rooms of the Al-Sheehaniya camp would have given Neville a glimpse into what life is like for residents within Syrian refugee camps.
Neville refused to take cash and declined the job offered by BeIN Sports. Who was so disturbed to see what he saw that they offered him a significant sum of money?
When he appeared on Have I Got News For You last Friday, Ian Hislop put paid to Neville’s self-confidence. He rightly and memorably took him down.
While you imagined David Beckham to be a friend naively, Neville entertained more sinister notions. He has seen how Qatar tells lies and tricks people into doing what it wants.
As of last year, the migrant worker situation in Qatar is not yet sorted out. Many were forced to leave the country and return home after work had dried up, a process referred to as ‘clearing space’ for the estimated 1.5 million people expected at the World Cup.
They’re sent back with loans, sometimes owed upwards of $100,000, while they wait to be paid by employers at less than 30 cents an hour.
Despite the findings of Amnesty International’s, a soccer fans’ favorite, research on sports segregation, FIFA, the video game created by EA Sports for soccer fans, has blocked Amnesty International from having an official presence. It is because coaches like Louis van Gaal and his Netherlands national team have inspired them to say “no suppressive rules” in an upcoming World Cup tournament that this time around, there is no misinformed/pre-judicial riposte.
As a human rights organization, we are against violating human rights. We’ve seen through FIFA’s façade that football development is not the real motive of their proposals. Money and power drive all decisions, not good sportsmanship and progress.
The managers of Premier League clubs have their grounds for disliking all this. Jurgen Klopp’s anger last week focused on his players being asked to express a view on human rights when Qatar shouldn’t have been granted the tournament.
Pep Guardiola hates that his international players might get injured in this weekend’s match.
When Michel Platini, FIFA president and Blatter’s deputy, asked how he would have reacted if the Swiss president approached him asking to fix a vote in his favor, Blatter insisted that the question didn’t arise for him because Switzerland lacks a president.
He is unaware of the concept of hosting one World Cup because no country has hosted one since 1924.
These are the men who created this event. They can’t help themselves. However, that’s precisely why it’s a toxic circus of filth.
Related:
