Thursday 26 September 2013

Slaves delivering Qatar's World Cup

The fact that FIFA awarded the 2022 World Cup would have been bad enough with the heat of the time of year it will be held and its human rights and LGBT offenses. But now it appears that the immigrant population that is building the infrastructure to host the event is being held in slave-like conditions.

Forty four young Napalise men died in a little over two months in June-August. They are not being paid and have their salaries retained to stop them running away. They are also not being allowed free water as their toil under the hot desert heat and are often left hungry as they work 12 hour long days. They also have their passports confiscated and not receive ID cards mean that their status officially is that of illegal immigrants, yet they are the workforce that is enabling Qatar to develop.

Will FIFA step in to this situation?

Sadly I doubt it, our world governing bodies are proving that while they are willing to talk to the talk about human endeavour and equality they are very reluctant to walk the walk when their decisions are found to have given their prestige events to someone who is not just less than perfect but so far from perfect that they should have known about the possibility in the first place of the controversy that would ensue. FIFA is probably not about to back heel the Qatar bid into someone else's net.

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