FIFA as an organization and its former president Sepp Blatter and the current president Infantino all knew very well about the human rights abuses in Qatar long before today. They know about the abuses against migrant workers who were building the World Cup infrastructure in Qatar.
The Western governments and society knew about these human rights violations. But as Infantino beautifully said, Western governments and companies are all over Qatar and the Gulf states making millions from oil and gas businesses and totally ignoring the human rights violations against gays, migrants, women, journalists, political opponents, ordinary citizens and everyone and everything else.
Western presidents and prime ministers have all been shuttling in and out of Middle East capitals to happily wine and dine with these oppressive kings, Emirs and sultans of these human rights violating countries.
Not long ago, we saw US president Joe Biden, French president Emanuel Macron and former UK prime minister Boris Johnson (soon Rishi Sunak will be IN the Gulf too) as well as German chancellor Shultz among others land in Riyadh, Doha, Abu Dhabi and in other capitals. Yet they knew these Gulf states don’t respect the rights of gays, citizens, journalists, women and migrants!
While Qatar and Saudi Arabia also stand against gay rights, it is obvious that they continue to hobnob with Western governments and officials, some of who are even openly gay! These Arab princes and tycoons would go to the West to party while buying football clubs and running businesses across the West. They never said they won’t do business with the West because they are gay or support LGBTQ rights!
FIFA itself knew that thousands of migrants have been used to build the World Cup infrastructure in Qatar in which hundreds of migrants have been killed and abused. FIFA has done nothing to support these migrants by demanding that Qatar compensate victims and stop the abuse.
There’s a whole global coalition to make both Qatar and FIFA stop violations and compensate victims. Yet, until today both FIFA and Qatar remain unresponsive. Many human rights organizations have sought to hold Qatar and FIFA accountable to no avail.
Therefore, if we get to this point only to see and hear the West cry about human rights in Qatar is hypocritical. But it’s also damn hypocritical for FIFA and Infantino to attack the West when FIFA has failed to make sure rights of migrants who are building the World Cup infrastructure are protected.
And Qatar must be told that they have a duty to protect all rights. If you invite the world to your house then you cannot tell folks to abandon their lifestyle just because you don’t agree with that lifestyle. Qatar does not own the World Cup and so they cannot determine what people can do or not do in their country during the World Cup. Otherwise do not request to host a global event like the World Cup.
All of them are hypocrites! Par excellence. The West, FIFA and Qatar.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
