The Wall_Spring 2023_Issue 9

Grace Oldfield (she/her), LVI, discusses the build up to the world cup in Qatar and the controversy around it.

Debate shrouded Qatar’s opportunity to host theWorld Cup last year.To most the issues were obscured by the excitement of football, the opportunity and theWorld Cup overall. However, the issues are serious and to some severe enough to boycott theWorld Cup completely. So, should Qatar have retained the opportunity to host the 2021World Cup, or should FIFA have given it to someone else when the initial facts were revealed? Qatar was headlining the news in the lead-up to theWorld Cup with controversy after controversy being uncovered. Preparation for any great international event takes money and work to build new stadiums and update the infrastructure for the hundreds of thousands of people who will eventually flood into the country to watch the event. From the beginning, the Qatari authorities did not implement any of the Human Rights clauses concerning labour protections requested by FIFA. This led to 1.5 million migrant workers, employed to construct the stadium, working in dangerous conditions with 6500 workers dying in the construction of these stadiums from 2010 (when they were given the tournament to host) to 2021. The corruption scandals and rumours made many question whether they should even be supporting the event.Talks of boycotting theWorld Cup to show anger at Qatar’s actions were widespread.

side to the argument. Qatar is the first Middle Eastern country to host the World Cup.The event would greatly increase the economic growth of Qatar, through foreign investment, and increase their international profile, especially as a tourist destination. Qatar needed to spend huge amounts of money on the preparation for this event as they had never hosted an international event of this size before. Most other countries that have previously hosted have had some infrastructure in place from other events, meaning they wouldn’t have to spend as much as Qatar. For example, when Russia hosted in 2018, they spent $11 million preparing for theWorld Cup, whereas Qatar spent $200 million. Qatar has built its infrastructure from scratch making it so much more expensive, but is this large spending of money acceptable? There has always been a lot of controversy around spending hundreds of millions on sports events, draining countries of their money for a few stadiums and a few weeks of fans and sports. Building this infrastructure not only takes money in a financial crisis, but it also takes a toll on the environment.There are long-term effects too, as the stadiums and infrastructure are not going to disappear after the last event.They will need to be used in a way that benefits the country, for example, tourism or music concerts On a more positive note, the QatarWorld Cup was also the first not to sell alcohol at the stadiums during games. It was sold in certain areas but

Artwork: Melis Buberka, UVI

not in the stadiums. It was certainly possible that this improved the atmos phere around football, a sport with fans known for becoming aggressive. There are evident benefits to Qatar hosting theWorld Cup. However, will it affect the authenticity of the event that they moved past blaring issues with Human rights and let theWorld Cup go ahead? Another view is that FIFA should have taken a stand against what was happening and stopped it.The blame is namely being directed at Qatar however, FIFA never showing much action to address the problems. Many issues surround sport that are swept under the rug to avoid damaging the fans’ view of the sport and the economy that revolves around them.The events surrounding Qatar are evidence that there needs to be more responsibility taken by officials and sports personalities, who have such a great platform to influence, to make change within sports and bring to light issues that are often pushed into the background.

However, there was another

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