Amid the often emotional rhetoric and highly-charged language used by human rights and trade union leaders at this week’s European Parliament session denouncing Qatar’s treatment of migrant workers were the usual trademark demands for the country to be stripped as 2022 World Cup hosts.
This is not being an apologist for some of the Gulf state’s notoriously archaic and antiquated laws. I, as much as anyone, believe that Qatar needs to rid itself of the totally unacceptable kafala employment system that has no place in the modern era and which French-Algerian footballer Zahir Belounis so movingly brought to the attention of fans worldwide.
But let’s not anticipate too much too soon. Qatar’s modus operandi may be somewhat feudal to the west but, like elsewhere in the region, it has been in place for tens of years, probably hundreds. To expect Qatar to clean up its act overnight, as some of its fiercest critics are demanding, is as unrealistic as it is impractical, as FIFA’s representative at this week’s Brussels hearing, Theo Zwanziger, made clear.
If you think Zwanziger was just towing the party line, let me remind you about one or two of the German’s choice remarks. He told delegates FIFA would “not be deceived” by Qatar’s new 50-page workers’ charter designed to put positive steps in place but which has been roundly condemned by critics as mere window dressing. Unusually strong words, even for someone of Zwanziger’s outspoken reputation.
Nine months ago, Zwanziger went even further, accusing his own colleagues at FIFA of making a “blatant mistake” in awarding the World Cup to Qatar. At the time, the statement was as much to do with the well chronicled fearsome summer heat as human rights but it nevertheless reverberated across the entire region.
Yet even Zwanziger now appears to recognise what many inside and outside Qatar insist is the reality: that far from cementing the country’s image as a thoughtless regime that is only interested in increasing its wealth by any means it can, the World Cup may actually act as a catalyst for positive change.
Arguably his most telling remark in Brussels was when he was asked about moving the tournament elsewhere. “There would still be human rights violations,” answered Zwanziger. “It would simply mean that the spotlight wouldn’t be on them.”
Precisely. In other words, it could have gone on and on, unnoticed by the outside world with Qatar being accountable to absolutely no-one except themselves.
“The World Cup is the best thing that could have happened to this country,” is how one Qatari-based official described the situation to me in the light of the Brussels hearing. Not necessarily just for footballing reasons, he pointed out, but to make sure the country complies with all reasonable standards of behaviour.
Whether you believe it or not, and the jury is probably out, Qatar’s government submitted a letter to the European Parliament hearing claiming that about 2,000 companies last year, and nearly 500 companies so far this year, had been blacklisted for questionable employment practices.
The view among 2022 World Cup organisers is that whilst organisations such as Amnesty International and the International Labour Organisation continue to put forward constructive criticism designed to improve the state of the country, describing it as a “slave state” with no intention to change, as other bodies with specific agendas have done, serves little purpose apart from trying to railroad Qatar into submissions of guilt and forcing it on the defensive.
And now we have a new and intriguing backdrop to the whole debate regarding Qatar’s hosting credentials both in terms of workers’ rights and summer versus winter. It has long been rumoured that one of the reasons FIFA has repeatedly put off a decision over when to actually name the dates for 2022 is because it wants to wait and see whether Qatar ends up being taken to task by the ongoing investigation into any bidding malpractise by the nine 2018 or 2022 candidates.
Those findings, according to Zwanziger, are expected to be published later this year by FIFA’s ethics committee led by the American Michael Garcia. While the committee, as such, has no power to demand Qatar be stripped, it can impose sanctions on individuals – which is pretty much tantamount to the same thing. But instead of a wall of silence, which we’ve had for months, isn’t it time we knew exactly what Garcia is up to, where he’s been and who he has spoken to – if only to eliminate contenders, and Qatar in particular, from any accusations of wrongdoing so that we have a clearer picture of the road ahead?
Andrew Warshaw was formerly Sports Editor of the The European newspaper and is chief correspondent of Insideworldfootball. Contact Andrew at moc.l1734789474labto1734789474ofdlr1734789474owdis1734789474ni@wa1734789474hsraw1734789474.werd1734789474na1734789474