The FIFA World Cup begins on November 20 in Qatar. Far from the excitement that usually accompanies one of the most watched sporting events on the planet, it is harsh criticism that follows one another and calls into question the very holding of the competition. Why is the small Gulf emirate, one of the richest countries in the world, so singled out?
Human rights, corruption and climate
The opposition to the holding of the World Cup in Qatar holds in four points. First, the inhumane treatment of the workers who built the stadiums. Several international NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, have sounded the alarm. According to the British newspaper The Guardian6,500 workers are said to have lost their lives during the construction of the stadiums where the competitions will take place.
Second, the issue of freedom of expression. Qatar ranks, according to the World Press Freedom Index, at 119e rank (out of 180) in terms of freedom of the press.
To make matters worse, the Qatari government enacted a cybercrime law in 2014, providing for prison terms for those who spread “false news” or slander against the country and its regime.
Third, according to the French broadcast Further investigationthe attribution of the event by FIFA (the International Federation of Football Association) would have been marred by corruption, in particular for the benefit of certain French leaders.
Last, but not least, is the fact of organizing a football competition in a country where the temperatures force competitions to be held in air-conditioned stadiums. An environmental heresy! In 2015, five years after the event was awarded to the Doha regime, the climate issue had already forced matches to be moved from June to November and December, at the cost of an unprecedented rearrangement of the calendars of national competitions and international.
Western critics
Based on some, if not all, of these arguments, opposition to the Qatari World Cup, which in 2010 consisted of a few negative comments, has swelled in recent weeks to take the form of boycott calls or statements of total lack of interest in the event. Faced with disputes, the Gulf emirate cries out qatar bashing. Many of these criticisms target issues known before the World Cup was awarded, such as Qatar’s labor laws and press freedom issues in the country. As for the mention of the climate and the environmental cost of the event, these are obviously not surprises either.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the gas emirate has also retorted that several European stadiums were well heated in winter, without causing indignation.
Interesting fact: the critics turn out to be essentially Western, and come mainly from France, Germany, Denmark or the United Kingdom, even Australia. Qatari World Cup ambassadors, responding to the indignation, point out that the rest of the world seems to be preparing for the event without a second thought, and this is indeed the case with Argentina, Brazil, Japan or South Korea.
The limits of sport as a political weapon
2022 is a special year when it comes to sports and politics. In addition to calls for a boycott of the Beijing Games, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted an unprecedented response from the sports world. Russian and Belarusian teams have been excluded from most international competitions, this eviction having even affected tennis players from these same countries during the Wimbledon tournament. Even if the condemnation of Russia was not universal, this sporting sanction was almost unanimous.
Was sport going to become a political weapon making it possible to put pressure on certain countries and prevent them from participating or organizing international competitions for non-respect of human rights and certain values of sustainable development? If the German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, officially expressed such an intention last October, we are still very far from it, quite the contrary. Even if the voices rising against the World Cup are numerous in the West and they have solid arguments, a significant part of the planet remains completely insensitive to their calls.
The year 2022, although rich in politico-sporting controversies, will perhaps have underlined the limits of the use of sport as a political weapon and put an end to the hope of a consensus around certain values for the organization of big events. The end of the controversies around sporting events is not for tomorrow: the next Football World Cup, which will be held in Canada, the United States and Mexico in 2026 and which will require athletes to cover immense distances will , without a doubt, to also receive its share of virulent criticism.