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FIFA: Time to Compensate Migrant Workers in Qatar
Qatar hit the headlines in December 2010 when football’s world governing body FIFA awarded it the right to host the 2022 men’s football World Cup, the first to be held in the Middle East. It was clear that a global event of this magnitude would mean Qatar would need to deploy immense resources and rely […]
FIFA: Pay for Harm to Qatar’s Migrant Workers
Global Coalition Calls for Financial Remedy for Deaths, Wage Theft (London) – Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Qatar have not received financial compensation or any other adequate remedy for serious labor abuses suffered while building and servicing infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup, which begins in November 2022, Human Rights Watch said today. On May […]
No ‘Dignity and Pride’ in World Cup Labor Abuses
FIFA Should Uphold Rights Responsibilities to Migrant Workers At a May 2 conference entitled “Managing the Beautiful Game,” FIFA President Gianni Infantino shockingly downplayed deaths and hardships of migrant workers in Qatar who have literally built the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In doing so, he reminded the world that preventable deaths and abuses of migrant workers in […]
As World Cup nears, Qatar and FIFA face fresh scrutiny on press freedom commitments
Exactly one year before the scheduled start of the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar, plainclothes officers from the Gulf state’s Criminal Investigations Department arrested Halvor Ekeland and Lokman Ghorbani, a sports reporter and cameraman respectively for Norwegian state broadcaster NRK, as they were leaving their hotel in the capital of Doha. The NRK journalists […]
10 Questions Journalists Should Ask FIFA and Qatari Authorities About Rights Abuses
When FIFA convenes its 72nd Congress in Doha, Qatar, on March 31, 2022, in preparation for the World Cup, journalists, football associations, fans, and others should press both FIFA officials and Qatari authorities about human rights in the Gulf state, particularly the rights of migrant workers, women, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Since 2010, […]
Qatar: Security guards subjected to forced labour
Security guards in Qatar are working in conditions which amount to forced labour, including on projects linked to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Amnesty International has found. In a new report, They think that we’re machines, the organization documented the experiences of 34 current or former employees of eight private security companies in Qatar. The security guards, all migrant […]
Iran: Women Blocked From Entering Stadium
Possible Use of Excessive Force; FIFA Should Enforce Call to End Discriminatory Ban (Beirut) – Iranian authorities prevented dozens of Iranian women from entering Imam Reza football stadium in the city of Mashhad on March 29, 2022, possibly using excessive force, Human Rights Watch said today. FIFA should use its leverage with Iranian authorities to demand that […]
Global Sport Industry Worth Billions: Players and Athletes Fail to Receive Their Fair Share
On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, one of the biggest unpaid sports events on the planet, a new report published today by the World Players Association shows that athletes and players continue to be denied a fair share of the wealth they generate and are excluded from the decision-making table. The World Player’s report, […]
New Year’s Revolution: Why 2022 will be a Wake-up Call for the World of Sport
The year 2022 will bring not one, not two, but three mega-sporting events in countries with problematic human rights records: the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, and the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar. The idea that sport can and should remain politically […]
Qatar: One Year to Make Good on Promises to Migrant Workers as Progress Stagnates
With just one year to go until the 2022 FIFA World Cup, time is running out for Qatar to deliver on its promise to abolish the kafala sponsorship system and better protect migrant workers, Amnesty International said today. In Reality Check 2021, a new analysis of Qatar’s progress towards overhauling its labour system, the organization found that progress has […]
Sport & Rights Alliance Raises Concerns over FIFA’s Surprise Selection of UAE to Host 2021 Club World Cup
Gianni Infantino, President of FIFA, announced on Wednesday that the global football governing body has selected the United Arab Emirates to host the Club World Cup 2022. Since 2017, FIFA has made important progress in terms of its human rights responsibilities, including adopting policies that ensure a human rights risk assessment for host countries and […]
Qatar: Failure to Investigate Migrant Worker Deaths Leaves Families in Despair
Qatari authorities have failed to investigate the deaths of thousands of migrant workers over the past decade, despite evidence of links between premature deaths and unsafe working conditions, Amnesty International said today. The organization’s new report, In the Prime of their Lives, documents how Qatar routinely issues death certificates for migrant workers without conducting adequate investigations, instead attributing deaths to “natural causes” […]