World Cup 2022: Qatar

[Villaphan04]

6 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

Which is kinda the point I was making in that post; there's not actually many countries that are completely above board in terms of human rights and I think you have to give some leeway if you want to see the World Cup hosted in the developing world sometimes.

I think this is really the point to hammer home. We all (or a majority of us on this board) have beliefs & a structure that is really common around the western world - me included obviously. democratic ideas, human rights for everyone (LGBTQ+, Women, Minorities), etc are things that most of us would think are basic fundamental rights for everyone. A majority of the rest of the world has differing opinions on these topics and, with FIFA, every federation gets a say/vote. 

In the world, I'd say there are about maybe 10-15 countries that would check: having the facilities to host the tournament, having good human rights records, having the money and supplies to host, & having the willingness to host said event. 

[maqroll]

First week of action complete. Some notable upsets, last gasp winners, goals from the GOATS, some brilliant goals by the not as famous. 

I'd say it's been a solid tournament so far.

As a fan of the sport I'm finding it impossible not to watch as much of it as I can.

Ultimately, there are the matches on the pitch, and they happen irrespective of the off field politics. 

I'm not so pure that I'm boycotting it.

[magnkarl]

21 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

To be honest reading this makes me doubt the Scandi media is covering Qatar fairly after all. Apologies if this message sounds hostile but this is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about - drawing false equivalence between a really, really awful place and a place that’s just flawed.

Yes, there are Arab monarchies with genuinely atrocious human rights records. Saudi Arabia is worse even than Russia (although that’s almost entirely due to the way it treats women). But not all Arab monarchies are alike; all are autocratic police states but there’s a big difference between Saudi and Qatar or Oman or Jordan. Lumping them all together does you no favours.

If you want numbers for it, Freedom House is a nonprofit that measures the relative freedom of countries and they’ve scored Saudi as 7/100, Russia as a 19/100, Oman as 24/100 and Qatar as 25/100. For reference, China is 9/100 and Thailand is 29/100. Even if you’re talking only about how it treats people within it’s own borders, Qatar is markedly better than Russia.

Clearly the migrant worker situation needs improving, but you certainly can just say a certain number of healthy young people will die each year. Migrant workers are 90% of the population of Qatar and over 200 people die in road accidents there per year. Construction work is dangerous; in Thailand where they have better human rights 4500 people die on construction sites a year. Pro rated for population that’s another 180 expected deaths. I’m sure sinister forces were at work in some of the deaths (and that should be improved) but the statistics seem intentionally misleading. Lots of people do just die.

And then Russian foreign policy is murderous in the extreme, as I’ve already noted. I don’t think you can just assume Qatar would have attacked it’s neighbours three times in the past twenty years if it had a larger population, nor that it would be shooting down airliners, etc. Russia is one of the most aggressive countries in the planet and the stuff Russia (particularly Wagner) have got up to abroad is horrific, frankly.

Even the Amnesty report shows the gulf between the countries. Their examples of Qatari repression were that some political blogger got arrested and got a big fine, or that a journalist was wrongly imprisoned for a few days then deported. We both know Russia just murders critics of the Kremlin, even if they’ve moved abroad.

Other quick examples: Freedom House says torture is illegal in Qatar and rarely occurs. Russia frequently tortures Ukrainians to death these days (including civilians). Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar but rarely prosecuted, whereas in areas of Russia gays are tortured and / or murdered. Etc.

Ultimately if you think Qatar is as bad as Russia you’re just factually wrong. You can criticise both but don’t draw false equivalence between them. And if someone is doing that I think it’s worth asking why.

I agree with much of this, but I also think a lot of it takes the focus off of the real issue (not to say that people being mistreated in Qatar and Russia isn’t a real issue) - FIFAs awful corruption and pandering to both Russia and Qatar - and by the looks of it SA. We don’t need to rate Russia and Qatar to realise both are wholly unfit to host this tournament when people are horribly repressed for their gender, nationality, sexuality or whatever. 

The fact that more people are having a go now is hopefully a sign that FIFAs shitstorm is going to receive more pressure moving forward so we don’t need to debate the next authoritarian state they give it to vs Russia and Qatar. Both are bad countries. Both shouldn’t have had it. Infantino should be sanctioned for his close ties to Putin. 

[Zatman]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

 

Not even playing each other

Yet

[Panto_Villan]

24 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

I agree with much of this, but I also think a lot of it takes the focus off of the real issue (not to say that people being mistreated in Qatar and Russia isn’t a real issue) - FIFAs awful corruption and pandering to both Russia and Qatar - and by the looks of it SA. We don’t need to rate Russia and Qatar to realise both are wholly unfit to host this tournament when people are horribly repressed for their gender, nationality, sexuality or whatever. 

The fact that more people are having a go now is hopefully a sign that FIFAs shitstorm is going to receive more pressure moving forward so we don’t need to debate the next authoritarian state they give it to vs Russia and Qatar. Both are bad countries. Both shouldn’t have had it. Infantino should be sanctioned for his close ties to Putin. 

I agree to an extent. Personally, while I think Qatar getting the World Cup was a travesty, I don't think the human rights issues alone are enough to disqualify them. I think it's fair to raise and discuss the issues, but a boycott based on them would be too far for me.

The reason why is the same reason I'd be happy with Thailand getting the World Cup (with its Freedom House rating only slightly higher than Qatar). It's an authoritarian police state too, but I reckon they'd put on a great tournament and if you refuse to allow the World Cup anywhere except democracies and / or places with impeccable human rights records then there's very few places you can actually host it, and fewer still that aren't rich white countries. 

Also, even if FIFA was a completely clean organisation we probably still wouldn't find ourselves in a situation where North America, Europe and Australia pass the World Cup around between themselves, because people from other countries get a vote too.

[Panto_Villan]

1 hour ago, El Zen said:

Indeed. 

Don’t need to ‘lump them all together’ any more than that to say they are terrible. I don’t disagree Qatar is less atrocious than Saudi, but that really doesn’t say much does it? 

But again, the point isn’t to argue who’s worst out of Saudi, Russia and Qatar. They are all bad, Russia very much so. Neither should have had/get to have the World Cup. If FIFA awarded the 2030 World Cup to Russia, I would boycott that too, with the awereness I have today about football politics that I didn’t have in 2018. I am 100 per cent certain this is true for most who boycott Qatar 22. Certainly those at the front of the loosely defined boycott movement. 

Well, this is the thing. As I mentioned in the post above, I don't put Qatar in the same category as Saudi Arabia or Russia or Iran in terms of being totally beyond the pale regarding human rights. I put it in a category above that where the country is flawed but I think should be considered for the World Cup (although then immediately disqualified for logicstical reasons in the case of Qatar).

Here's a fun chart. I'm not quite sure why they've split democracy into liberal and electoral, but the former are the rich Western countries + Japan / Korea, and the latter is Eastern Europe, Latin America, Indonesia and the best governed parts of Africa.

If you rule out countries purely based on being autocracies then you've just said it's morally unacceptable if 70% of the world's population have a chance to see the World Cup in their home country (and that's even before you start discounting countries like Poland and Hungary and Israel). Doesn't that make you a bit uncomfortable? 

Edited November 26, 2022 by Panto_Villan

[El Zen]

Yeah, it makes me very uncomfortable that so many people live under oppressive regimes. 

[Panto_Villan]

40 minutes ago, El Zen said:

Yeah, it makes me very uncomfortable that so many people live under oppressive regimes. 

Cool. Can we put the World Cup in the British Museum along with all the other global heritage items that rich white countries took from places we looked down on for not being sufficiently enlightened?

Being serious for a moment - I understand the point you’re making and in moderation it’s a valid one. However, frankly, I think it gets ridiculous and more than a little racist once it reaches the point you want to exclude most of the world (almost all of it non-white) from being able to host the World Cup, which you apparently do. I’m genuinely surprised you want to go that far.

Anyway, I think we’ve both made our views clear so I’ll bow out of the discussion. Should also add I’m not calling you a racist here, just how far you’re willing to take that specific view.

 

[El Zen]

12 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Cool. Can we put the World Cup in the British Museum along with all the other global heritage items that rich white countries took from places we looked down on for not being sufficiently enlightened?

Being serious for a moment - I understand the point you’re making and in moderation it’s a valid one. However, frankly, I think it gets ridiculous and more than a little racist once it reaches the point you want to exclude most of the world (almost all of it non-white) from being able to host the World Cup, which you apparently do. I’m genuinely surprised you want to go that far.

Anyway, I think we’ve both made our views clear so I’ll bow out of the discussion. Should also add I’m not calling you a racist here, just how far you’re willing to take that specific view.

 

Putting it as generously as possible: F*** right off. 

And, yeah, I read your disclaimer. 

This is f***ing absurd. 

[TheAuthority]

17 minutes ago, El Zen said:

Putting it as generously as possible: F*** right off. 

And, yeah, I read your disclaimer. 

This is f***ing absurd. 

Not sure what hill he's trying to die on.

And the 6,500 death figure has been debunked several times in this thread alone. The official Qatari figure of 37 is absolutely laughably low for a 10 year major infrastructure project on the scale that Doha has just undergone (for this event.)

It's been widely reported that it's not just people falling off scaffolding who have died to line FIFA's pockets. People have literally been worked to death, working long shifts in crazy heat, going home to poor non-airconditioned accommodation without access to clean water and not granted access to proper health care.

There are multiple reasons to be very angry about this world cup - but because you think Russia wasn't complained about as much (in whatever media you consume) makes people racist who do complain about Qatar - that's a mental conclusion.

[magnkarl]

6 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Not sure what hill he's trying to die on.

And the 6,500 death figure has been debunked several times in this thread alone. The official Qatari figure of 37 is absolutely laughably low for a 10 year major infrastructure project on the scale that Doha has just undergone (for this event.)

It's been widely reported that it's not just people falling off scaffolding who have died to line FIFA's pockets. People have literally been worked to death, working long shifts in crazy heat, going home to poor non-airconditioned accommodation without access to clean water and not granted access to proper health care.

There are multiple reasons to be very angry about this world cup - but because you think Russia wasn't complained about as much (in whatever media you consume) makes people racist who do complain about Qatar - that's a mental conclusion.

It’s whataboutism. ‘My news didn’t complain about Russia, so everyone who’s complaining about Qatar is racist and we should not say anything because it’s two faced and racist to complain when 70% of the world lives under oppressive regimes.’

Parody.

Edited November 27, 2022 by magnkarl

[Panto_Villan]

5 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Not sure what hill he's trying to die on.

And the 6,500 death figure has been debunked several times in this thread alone. The official Qatari figure of 37 is absolutely laughably low for a 10 year major infrastructure project on the scale that Doha has just undergone (for this event.)

It's been widely reported that it's not just people falling off scaffolding who have died to line FIFA's pockets. People have literally been worked to death, working long shifts in crazy heat, going home to poor non-airconditioned accommodation without access to clean water and not granted access to proper health care.

There are multiple reasons to be very angry about this world cup - but because you think Russia wasn't complained about as much (in whatever media you consume) makes people racist who do complain about Qatar - that's a mental conclusion.

It’s two separate points. Russia is a genuinely terrible place, Qatar is merely a bad one. You’re free to complain about both, but classing them as equally bad is ill informed and / or racist.

The second point is if you then take an incredibly simplistic view about what constitutes an “unworthy” country - in this case the guy explicitly said any authoritarian regime is unworthy simply because they’re authoritarian regimes, despite 70% of the world’s population living in them - then you end up in a situation where very little of the world meets your standards.

That’s insane. The World Cup is a world event. You can’t have a situation where most of the world isn’t eligible to host it, even if that means you sometimes have to host it somewhere that doesn’t have a perfect human rights record or isn’t a model democracy.

I mean, if you can’t see that most of the world is going to have a problem with the idea that the entire of Africa, Middle East and most of Asia aren’t allowed to have a World Cup because a bunch of guys in Western Europe have decided they’re not pure enough then I don’t know what to tell you.

[sne]

It's the human rights, LGBT, slavery issues (that FIFA claims to be strongly against) , bribes and so on combined with Qatar being utterly unsuited to host a WC due to not having the infrastructure, having never qualified, being a tiny, tiny country with a climate that forced FIFA to move the WC from summer to winter that is the main issues. There are even more issues tbf. It's not the one thing.

Qatar/FIFA going back on things they promised teams, fans and sponsors just days or hours before the event started only highlights how moronic this farce of a tournament is.

 

[magnkarl]

41 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

It’s two separate points. Russia is a genuinely terrible place, Qatar is merely a bad one. You’re free to complain about both, but classing them as equally bad is ill informed and / or racist.

The second point is if you then take an incredibly simplistic view about what constitutes an “unworthy” country - in this case the guy explicitly said any authoritarian regime is unworthy simply because they’re authoritarian regimes, despite 70% of the world’s population living in them - then you end up in a situation where very little of the world meets your standards.

That’s insane. The World Cup is a world event. You can’t have a situation where most of the world isn’t eligible to host it, even if that means you sometimes have to host it somewhere that doesn’t have a perfect human rights record or isn’t a model democracy.

I mean, if you can’t see that most of the world is going to have a problem with the idea that the entire of Africa, Middle East and most of Asia aren’t allowed to have a World Cup because a bunch of guys in Western Europe have decided they’re not pure enough then I don’t know what to tell you.

There are plenty of ways to make it possible for more countries to host.

a) being awarded WC should make the countries not able to treat their population properly aspire to do better. We should expect some standard above what China, Russia and Qatar is achieving. If they can’t improve, tough shit. FIFA mainly makes its money in the West and democratic nations. 

b) Awarding the WC to a country that has no intention of changing (see Russia, China, Qatar, SA) motivates these places to keep carrying on in their totalitarian ways. We discussed the same principles in the Russia thread. Negotiating and awarding this behaviour historically does absolutely jack. 

c) Both FIFA and ioc needs to get their heads out of their proverbial behinds and let countries use infrastructure that’s already there. They have to stop expecting countries to spend 6 billion on stadiums and arenas every time their ego-inflating corruption road show comes to town. There are plenty of countries that could co-host, the Baltics, Scandinavia, Slovenia-Croatia, Aus-NZ, Morocco-Tunisia, India etc.

Edited November 27, 2022 by magnkarl

[Panto_Villan]

@sne @magnkarl Yeah, I agree. It’s something you need to consider on a case by case basis at the end of the day. Some places should be banned based on their human rights record, whereas in other places it’s something to be discussed but not a dealbreaker.

But I think suggesting a blanket ban on 70% of the world because they live in autocracies is ****ing mental, especially if you’re supposedly doing it in the name of inclusion. Which I why I disagree so much with El Zen about this.

[El Zen]

1 hour ago, Panto_Villan said:

@sne @magnkarl Yeah, I agree. It’s something you need to consider on a case by case basis at the end of the day. Some places should be banned based on their human rights record, whereas in other places it’s something to be discussed but not a dealbreaker.

But I think suggesting a blanket ban on 70% of the world because they live in autocracies is ****ing mental, especially if you’re supposedly doing it in the name of inclusion. Which I why I disagree so much with El Zen about this.

I’ve never actually said this, but go on. I’ll just go back to my KKK rally now, if you’ll excuse me.

[OutByEaster?]

5 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

That’s insane. The World Cup is a world event. You can’t have a situation where most of the world isn’t eligible to host it, even if that means you sometimes have to host it somewhere that doesn’t have a perfect human rights record or isn’t a model democracy.

I think there's an important key in here - the World Cup isn't COP28 or a scout jamboree, it's not a 'world event' in the sense that it belongs to people across the globe in some sort of all hold hands way - it's a commercial object run for profit by a market based company in a Western market based society, with Western market values and ideals - it's very much an absolute product of the homogenised structure of Western capitalism - it's values are the values of McDonalds, Sony, Barclays and Budweiser - it's not by any means a product of globalised culture.

That it invites nations from all countries to compete is down to its desire to penetrate those markets, not of some desire to embrace the multiplicity of global culture. If you invite it into your country, you accept it's values - in this case I guess personified by the idea that money counts and nothing else does (we could have the next World Cup in Elon Musk's garden if the money is right) - but also you need to accept how Western capitalism's values work - and that should mean that women, gay people, alcoholics, people of all religions and ethnicities and anyone else that might have a pound to spend are included and made to feel welcome enough to spend money.

If those aren't your values, if you place anything above global commercialisation and the corporate superstructure, then no, you shouldn't be eligible to hold a world cup.

 

 

[El Zen]

22 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

but also you need to accept how Western capitalism's values work - and that should mean that women, gay people, alcoholics, people of all religions and ethnicities and anyone else that might have a pound to spend are included and made to feel welcome enough to spend money.

If those aren't your values, if you place anything above global commercialisation and the corporate superstructure, then no, you shouldn't be eligible to hold a world cup.

Who is saying this, though? FIFA clearly aren’t saying this, FIFA’s/Qatar22’s critics aren’t saying this. 

[mjmooney]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

I think there's an important key in here - the World Cup isn't COP28 or a scout jamboree, it's not a 'world event' in the sense that it belongs to people across the globe in some sort of all hold hands way - it's a commercial object run for profit by a market based company in a Western market based society, with Western market values and ideals - it's very much an absolute product of the homogenised structure of Western capitalism - it's values are the values of McDonalds, Sony, Barclays and Budweiser - it's not by any means a product of globalised culture.

That it invites nations from all countries to compete is down to its desire to penetrate those markets, not of some desire to embrace the multiplicity of global culture. If you invite it into your country, you accept it's values - in this case I guess personified by the idea that money counts and nothing else does (we could have the next World Cup in Elon Musk's garden if the money is right) - but also you need to accept how Western capitalism's values work - and that should mean that women, gay people, alcoholics, people of all religions and ethnicities and anyone else that might have a pound to spend are included and made to feel welcome enough to spend money.

If those aren't your values, if you place anything above global commercialisation and the corporate superstructure, then no, you shouldn't be eligible to hold a world cup. 

That is a VERY cynical analysis. 

And entirely correct. 

[maqroll]

Sad to see spectators wearing Native American ceremonial headdress.

People out there are still really ignorant.