It’s been over a decade since the tiny Middle Eastern nation of Qatar was controversially awarded the soccer World Cup.Since then, accusations of bribery and corruption have resulted in convictions. High-ranking members of soccer’s governing body, FIFA, have been forced to stand down. The plight of women and the LGBTQ community in Qatar is well documented. The black marks against Qatar have been known for over a decade, yet it did not convince soccer’s governing body, FIFA, to move the event.
On Dec 18, France will line up against Argentina at the Lusail Stadium about 20km north of Doha. It will be the 64th and final game of the World Cup, but it will also represent the end of an ugly decade for the so-called beautiful game.
Here are six things we likely won’t forget about the 2022 World Cup.
Human Rights Abuses
Long before Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, it was known for having a poor human rights record. Homosexuality is illegal and punishable by death, although there are no records of capital punishment occurring. LGBTQ advocacy is also illegal.
Qatari law allows men to wield control over the lives of their wives and daughters. The male guardianship rule is neither clear nor cohesive, according to a Human Rights Watch report. The rule, which is made up of a series of laws, policies and practices, dictates that women must ask for male permission for specific activities, like marriage, travel, working in certain government ministries and having an abortion, which is legal in Qatar if it threatens the life or health of the mother. Until Jan. 2020, women needed permission to obtain a driver’s license. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, women are also discriminated against in marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance. There are also no laws prohibiting rape or domestic violence.
In November, Dr. Yi Luo, Associate Professor at Montclair State University’s School of Communication and Media, co-authored a study examining the scale of public outrage around the human rights abuses in Qatar.
The report noted that around 92 percent of 22,000 tweets sent between Oct. 15 to Nov. 14 supported boycotts and human rights activism, which Luo says could add to the swell of pressure against discriminatory and authoritarian governments in nations like Qatar.
“Exposing these inhumane practices can encourage individuals, as well as collective, regional and global entities, to place pressure on governments to address human rights everywhere,” Luo told Reckon. “Again, we’re not going to see overnight changes, but I think through this awareness and collective global pressure, something positive may happen.”
Professor Luo’s colleague and one of the report’s authors, Dr. Jin-A Choi, told Reckon that the recent awareness of Qatar’s human rights record could have a lasting effect on sponsors and celebrities.
“This is a big wake-up call, especially for brands trying to do good in the world,” she said. “They will learn lessons about associating with places like Qatar. People like Ronaldo and David Beckham will ultimately suffer consequences as paid ambassadors for Qatar. We have seen that social media has propelled the collective idea of boycotting and standing up as a community together.”
The abuses have been widely documented in news media, books, movies and among high-ranking government officials and academic reports.
Thousands of workers’ deathsQatar, funded by substantial oil revenues, began constructing new roads, stadiums, hotels and other types of infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of workers began arriving from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, among other places.
At one time, around 95%of the country’s population of three million were migrant workers. The workforce has complained of being hired under false pretenses, underpaid and forced to live in poor conditions as Qatar pumped $500 million a week into preparing for the tournament.
There are documented cases of immigrant workers, mostly from Southeast Asia, being trafficked into servitude as domestic workers and laborers after they willingly arrive in Qatar. Some are also forced into prostitution, according to various reports.
Until late 2020, those migrant workers couldn’t simply switch jobs or go home because employers in Qatar decided if their workers could change jobs or even leave the country.
Thousands of those in the migrant workforce likely died living and working in hazardous conditions. Estimates range from as low as 400, claim Qatari World Cup organizers, to about 6500, according to an analysis by the Guardian. But some Southeast Asian countries have initiated reforms to help their citizens.
“During the past 12 years, South Asians have heard terrible stories from family members, friends, and neighbors of their experiences in Qatar,” wrote Meenakshi Ganguly, the Director of Human Rights Watch for Southeast Asia, in a September article. “South Asian governments that have instituted welfare systems to support overseas workers or their families, including repatriation of the deceased or death compensation to families, are intimately familiar with the scale of unremedied abuse their citizens have faced in Qatar.”
Qatari officials have shown little remorse. That lack of remorse was underlined earlier this month after a migrant worker from the Philippines died while working at a soccer training base in Qatar.
“Death is a natural part of life, whether it’s at work, whether it’s in your sleep,” said Qatari CEO of the World Cup, Nasser Al Khater, according to Reuters.
A mind-boggling price tag
Alongside the human cost is the staggering final bill.
Qatar spent $220 billion hosting the tournament. That includes the construction of an entirely new city, Lusail. South Africa spent $3.5 billion to host the same competition. Brazil spent $11.6 billion in 2014, while Russia forked out around $15 billion.
One unusual extravagance is Stadium 974.
“Stadium 974 — a 40,000-seat stadium built out of 974 shipping containers for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar — will be dismantled after today’s match,” tweeted Joe Pompliano, a Florida-based sports investor and entrepreneur. “The stadium cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and was used for just SEVEN MATCHES.”
The climate cost
Qatar’s claim to have hosted a carbon-neutral World Cup is unlikely by just about every measure. The country’s entire wealth comes from fossil fuels and nearly everything Qatar needed to host the World Cup was built from scratch in a blisteringly hot desert, where temperatures reach 118F in the summer.
Everything needed to build new roads, hotels, stadiums, and industrial-scale air-conditioning was imported. Even the seeds for the 144 grass pitches had to be brought in on climate-controlled aircraft, according to a Reuters report. Each field required 50,000 liters of water per day in the Summer. In winter, it’s 10,000 liters.
Not everyone is convinced by Qatar’s carbon-neutral claims.
“Our investigation of the available evidence casts serious doubts on this claim, which likely underestimates the tournament’s true emissions levels and climate impact,” noted the European-based nonprofit organization Carbon Market Watch (CMW) in a report released earlier this year.
Jules Boykoff, a professor at Pacific University in Oregon and an expert on issues relating to politics, government and the environment, told Reckon that Qatari officials are trying to fool the public.
“Some people would look at this World Cup and say the carbon footprint is so much smaller than the US on an annual basis,” he said. “But because FIFA and the organizers in Qatar have made a point of calling it a carbon-neutral event, it leaves the public with the idea that the tournament is ostensibly good for the environment. It deepens the sort of hoodwink of greenwashing and makes it more socially acceptable for other sports events to sports wash moving forward.”
Rampant bribery
When Qatar beat Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States to host the World Cup, eyebrows were raised. Unlike the other nations, soccer in Qatar wasn’t exactly a growing sport and hardly the ideal location for a major sporting event.
On the same evening Qatar was awarded the 2022 World Cup, Russia won the right to host the 2018 tournament. Accusations of bribery and corruption have dogged both bids.
Entire books have been written about the intricacies of the bribery and corruption involved in voting. Some were even written years before Russia and Qatar won hosting rights.
Here’s a quick overview:
Of the 24 members of FIFA’s Executive Committee, the individuals responsible for voting on what country hosts the World Cup, two were suspended before voting started in early Dec. 2010. Allegations arose that the pair would accept money in exchange for votes. Further claims of vote buying emerged soon after and the entire scheme quickly unraveled.
Of the remaining 22 committee members, 16 have been suspended, fined, banned for life, or prosecuted for corruption.
In later years, U.S. prosecutors arrested seven people and indicted a further 40, even though many of the alleged crimes occurred in the Middle East, Africa, South America and Europe. U.S. Prosecutors could assert legal jurisdiction over many cases because the alleged criminal acts were committed through electronic mail systems, cellular phone networks, and bank wire transfers based in the United States. Some of the cases are still moving through federal courts.
Low attendance
You might have noticed the empty seats if you’ve been watching the World Cup on TV. Even Qatari officials have said they welcomed far fewer people into the country than expected. Instead of the 1.2 million, a little under 800,000 people turned up during the peak.
A Qatari news source said that around 2.45 million spectators attended games with a 96% occupancy.
“For a World Cup quarter-final, the atmosphere is more like a pre-season exhibition game and the amount of empty seats is a travesty,” tweeted British sports journalist Dominic King. “Whatever they say the attendance is, treat it with suspicion.”
But the high cost of attending may also be keeping people away.
Tickets at this year’s tournament are the highest ever, averaging about $350, according to a study. Accommodation is also extremely expensive, while a pint of beer costs around $14.
But it hasn’t been all bad. Morocco miraculously made it to the Semi/Final, the furthest any African or Arab soccer nation has come. Iran’s national team didn’t make it out of the group stage, but the players and its fans rallied behind protestors back home.
The hosts of the 2026 World Cup in the U.S., Canada and Mexico will have much to reflect on if the world’s most popular sport can repair its tarnished image and be appreciated for the talent on the field rather than its atrocities.
