The World Cup: Sustainability, Human Rights and the Economy
Every four years, spectators from around the world come together to celebrate their passion for soccer, more importantly, their love for their national team. The FIFA World Cup 2022 has been the most anticipated event for soccer fans for the past four years, as many wonder who will win the championship and dethrone France as the world champion. This year - and for the first time - soccer fans will gather in Qatar from mid-November to mid-December, marking the first time a World Cup will take place during the winter season. The decision was made in 2010 after the county won a ballot of Fifa's 22 executive members. The country has been preparing ever since for this highly anticipated international competition. However, as Qatar prepares to welcome hundreds of thousands of fans, questions about sustainability, human rights, and regulations are raised.
Qatar is a country in the Middle East; although small, the current population of Qatar is 2,995,736 as of Sunday, November 12th, 2022. Qatar has the world's third-largest proven natural gas reserve and the second-largest natural gas exporter. As a small oil country, Qatar has been preparing to host the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 for the last 12 years, a competition expected to generate a lot of revenue. However, Qatar's economy is expected to slow down after the World Cup. Indeed, the country has estimated the influx of 1.2 million visitors will add $17 billion to its Gross Domestic Product. However, after the World Cup, tourism and consumption will decrease, which will slow down the economy of Qatar, a very well-known country for its oil economy.
It was in 2010 that FIFA Executive Members designated Qatar to host the World Cup in 2022. As a result, the country has had to make massive investments to host this five-week competition. Qatar has spent $200 billion on infrastructures and other development projects since winning the bid to host the World Cup. To build these infrastructures, the country employed migrant workers, which exposed the country's history of human rights violations. These migrant workers from Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh came to Qatar because they lacked job opportunities in their home country. In order to build such infrastructures for the World Cup, Qatar needed the help of migrant workers who seek better opportunities and higher pay. However, the harsh reality of the life of migrant workers in Qatar was unveiled. Many migrant workers lost their lives by working on construction sites in the host country's most essential soccer tournament, which unites millions of people every four years.
The World Cup will be played following years of serious migrant labor and human rights abuses in Qatar, Human Rights Watch said. The only way through which Qatar could build so many infrastructures was by hiring migrant workers from Nepal, India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh. Nonetheless, FIFA awarded the games to Qatar in 2010, with little human rights due diligence and no clear restrictions regarding protections for migrant workers who would be required to build the vast infrastructures. This lack of control and regulations has led to the death of hundreds of migrant workers, who allegedly passed away while working on the infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. As a result, more people became aware of the human rights violations in Qatar over the last decades. Human Rights Watch identified Qatari laws, norms, and practices that enforce discriminatory male guardianship standards that deprive women of the ability to make important life decisions in a report from 2021. In Qatar, women must seek their male guardians' consent before getting married, receiving reproductive health care, working in several government jobs, and studying abroad on government scholarships. In 2017, FIFA adopted a Human Rights Policy, pledging to take "measures to promote the protection of human rights," saying, "FIFA will take adequate measures for their protection, including by using its leverage with the relevant authorities. However, by granting Qatar the right to host the World Cup, FIFA is going against its words to promote the protection of human rights as the host country has been the source of various human rights violations over the last decades.
Fifa, the World Cup organizer, has been blamed by many for its lack of recognition and responsibility in electing Qatar to host and organize the World Cup. This worldwide event is expected to have an influx of over 1 million visitors in a country with a population of less than 3 million. FIFA ought to have understood that millions of individuals providing their foreign labor would be required to create and maintain the World Cup's infrastructure. This was anticipated to have cost US$220 billion and included eight stadiums, an airport expansion, a new metro, numerous hotels, and other significant infrastructure. Additionally, FIFA is responsible for those workers and ensuring safe working conditions. However, according to Human Rights Watch, FIFA failed to impose strict conditions to protect workers despite repeated warnings from the workers themselves and civil society organizations and instead became a complacent enabler of the widespread abuse workers endured, including illegal recruitment fees, wage theft, injuries, and deaths.
Qatar is a country with many rules that have been extended to visitors of Qatar, even during the World Cup. Such restrictions have created a lot of controversies but also shine a light on government laws in Qatar that indicate human rights violations. For example, a rule that visitors and fans must follow is no sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Qatar's penal code criminalizes all forms of sex outside marriage, with sentences of up to seven years in prison. In addition, Qatar's penal code punishes consensual sexual relations between men above age 16 with up to 7 years in prison. A penalty of up to 10 years is imposed on anyone who engages in consensual sexual relations, which could apply to consensual same-sex relations between women, men, or heterosexual partners. Minky Worden, a news reporter and writer for Human Rights Watch, said that journalists would help ensure that these crucial issues of human rights violations are brought to light by the World Cup, as Qatar, FIFA and its sponsors still have a chance to rescue the tournament's legacy by addressing migrant rights abuses related with the World Cup and enacting reforms to increase protections for women, LGBT people, and migrant groups - not just during the World Cup but also beyond.
Currently, there are no reports of tourists being arrested for violating any of the rules stated above. However, tourists and fans are expected to abide by Qatari laws, with the risk of getting arrested, detained, and potentially put into jail. It has been reported, however, that fans have attempted to enter the stadium with an LGBTQ+ flag. This was the fan's way of showing their support for the LGBTQ+ community of Qatar, which is subject to abuse and mistreatment in the nation. These fans were denied access to the stadium unless they gave up the flag.
While human rights abuses are still present in Qatar and millions of migrant workers work in horrible conditions, questions arose regarding the environmental effort of Qatar during this World Cup. According to Fifa, an international governing body of association football, "The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Sustainability Strategy includes a comprehensive set of initiatives to mitigate the tournament related emissions, including energy-efficient stadiums, low emission transportation, and sustainable waste management practices".The 2022 FIFA World Cup sustainability strategy will enable the host country to deliver a tournament that sets new benchmarks in social, human, economic, and environmental development. However, according to recent discoveries, Qatar has been going against the above ethical standards established by FIFA. In its recent report, Carbon Market Watch found that when FIFA tabulated the carbon footprint for building seven new stadiums, it ignored enormous carbon sources, underestimating emissions by a factor of eight.
Furthermore, with newly built air-conditioned stadiums and 150 daily flights to bring in fans, the 2022 World Cup has been dubbed one of the competition's biggest environmental disasters. Even though Qatar claimed that its World Cup met the environmental standards that FIFA set, many concerns have arisen as to whether or not this World Cup is sustainable or greenwashing. After further research, it has been discovered that although Qatar has shown sustainable efforts, this promise of carbon neutrality is not possible, according to Gilles Dufrasne, lead author of the Carbon Market Watch report published in May 2022, examining Qatar's claims.
Known for being an oil country, Qatar's economy will only benefit from this international tournament, even at the cost of human rights and sustainability. In the past, it has been shown that hosting the World Cup could generate a lot of revenue for the nation. However, it is also true that hosting this competition may be a bad idea for others. The Qatar World Cup in 2022 is estimated to generate $4.7 billion in income. However, given the amount of money invested on investments and infrastructure for this internationally known competition, Qatar's unprecedented outlay is unlikely to pay off. There is the typical assumption that billions of people will witness this mega-event, putting Qatar on the figurative map and encouraging tourism, foreign trade, and investment. It might also give Qatar a larger influence in geopolitics. The historical data is negative for these promises of developing "soft power" and long-term economic gains. Being seen on the global stage is a two-way street. Qatar receives a lot of attention, but the majority of it could be more positive. It paid bribes to secure hosting privileges. It has brought in tens of thousands of foreign laborers and subjected them to its cruel kafala labor system, which has reportedly killed thousands of people. The games were rescheduled from summer to November/December due to the extreme heat. Its unfinished investment projects will be prominently shown. The expulsion of foreign workers from their homes to accommodate soccer fans and, ultimately, the removal from the country, among other embarrassments, is not likely to enhance Qatar's positive power.
The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2020 has been the most controversial sporting event in the last few decades. While the renowned competition unveils the ongoing issues that the host country has been facing for decades, it is also leaving the future of the country unknown as hatred has built up against Qatar, a small oil country under the spotlight for hosting the World Cup, but also for its violations of human rights, and allegations of greenwashing. It is now up to Qatar and its Executives to live up to the expectations that it set for itself.
