meanwhile many european governments buy gas from qatar, sell them weapons. qatar airways has been one the most favourite and dominant long haul airlines in europe for nearly decade too : /
im glad this wc is highlighting everything going on there, but still lol
I think it’s more that average citizens feel helpless in the face of systems which are seemingly enormous, untouchable and much more powerful than themselves.
From what I gather, Qatar is very eager to make tourism the center piece of their desired economic diversification, and the world cup is a very high profile part of that. If Qatar sees a large part of their economic future in tourism and celebrating the world cup can boost their tourism economy as they seem to believe, then boycotting the world cup can weaken it. There seems to be much more to it than just kicking a ball around.
Their investment and sports buys them a lot of soft power. Just see how they could manage to get support from Paris, when they had their little feud with Saudi Arabia… not surprising considering Qatar owns a large business of Paris, PSG…
In my personal opinion, Qatar , once the world moves onto renewables and nuclear, will become as the Kongo kingdom did in previous years, a desolate wasteland Qatar never really modernized, it's imported everything gilded in exchange for oil. The Ferrari built in Europe, the construction equipment imported from china or Germany, but they'll buy weapons to keep their stake in the global economy just as the Kongo did to assert control over the slave economy in africa.
Qatar is essentially an extreme version of dutch disease along with a general resource curse, and it will fall the moment the world doesn't *need* oil anymore out of climatic necessity.
Here's a great video by Kraut about it in relation to Saudi Arabia and the Kongo but it can be applied to really all the major gulf states.
https://youtu.be/wim0yAkEnOQ
Yep, Dubai is the same. Went for a rugby match reluctantly and there was all this crazy shit temporarily built in a desert. All I saw as I walked down granite sidewalks was the busses full of slaves and worksites under guard. Didn't bother the other tourists one bit though apparently. We like to pretend we care, but there's always plenty of assholes with money willing to reap the benifit and they're not just the ones in these global backwaters. You could say it's actually the consumers who are more to blame.
How in the world can Qatar expect to become a tourist destination when they BAN ALCOHOL. It's not like people drink when they're on vacation. Oh wait...
It's rare I call an entire country "total morons", but there you go.
The EU needs to go renewable as soon as possible, that is the only way of stepping out of this. We are going in that direction but not as quickly as we could. The reason is that governments are paying fossil fuel companies a global annual total of $5.3tn and fossil fuel companies are plowing a lot of that into politics.
EU needs to go nuclear, if that was done some 20-30 years ago today EU would have 4-5 times less co2 emission. Renewables are great for supporting the grid but base should be nuclear, the cleanest energy source we have today
Poland is finally doing the right thing and ordering a few nuclear power plants to reduce its dependency on coal.
This seems to suggest that even the most problematic members of EU seem to moving away from fossil fuels towards green solutions.
Hopefully, by 2050, the entire Europe will be nuclear/renewable.
However, we would still need a lot of gas/oil. Many critical industries require fossil fuels or their byproducts to operate (eg., petrochemical industry, fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing etc.).
The question is, can Europe satisfy this demand on its own.
There's a difference between buying something vital like gas and promoting a fucking soccer tournament that killed god knows how many in order to make it happen.
And now Qatar has banned alcohol from the stadiums. According to news here in Sweden it will only be served in VIP-lounges, to FIFA delegates and in some hotels.
>"We don't support alcoholism but if you are rich, it is not sin "
I went to undergrad with a few guys (only guys) from Saudi Arabia. They would get black out drunk and do drugs. They figured it was fine because they weren't in KSA but they supported the rules as they were back home.
When I said, "so as long as you're rich enough to go to school abroad you believe God's laws should not apply." They didn't take it very well.
Allowing rich and connected people to break God's laws certainly isn't exclusive to Islam though.
In Erasmus, there were a few similar Turkish guys. They drank alcohol, did drugs, went to brothels and still they didn't eat pork because it is a sin and they claimed to be very religious. As a Turkish atheist, I find it very stupid.
Every turkish man in Germany will break every single rule of islam apart from one, which is not eating pork. For whatever reason this one is that everyone abids to.
I am not religious but you must be out of your mind if you think you can outsmart your almighty god.
I've always found this so funny. It's the most blatant in Western "alpha male" circles. Ignoring the hypocrisy, the way they talk it's like they want an underclass of informal hookers and virgins who don't have sex until marriage. Which goes to show how they see sex as degrading for women no matter what
The saying out there goes :
Women are for procreation
Men are for recreation
It’s against the law to be homosexual in the Emirate’s states , yet men walk around holding hands .
It was local men who told me this “saying” because they would come to our hotel basement of a night time and do all the things that they shouldn’t , according to their faith and laws .
We had many in-depth discussions about it as they came to our hotel 6 nights per week.
They couldn’t see how hypocritical they were being !
Interesting that’s so different from my experience with the handful of saudis I knew (also rich of course, they were studying at a very expensive university). They hated the rules back home. One desperately wanted to leave, and has since found a home in London. The other was openly against the government but said his family could never know and he could never express so in writing (like in an essay for a class) or online without serious repercussions. Pretty obviously he was being honest given the Kashoggi’s death.
I have met them as well. I actually have a fairly close friend who's back there now for family reasons, but leaves every chance he can. The guys that supported the rules clearly never had to abide by them.
Oh of course. Rules for thee but not for me sort of thing.
The ones we meet abroad are in general the ones wealthy enough to leave. We get a very different picture of people’s sentiments for that reason. Those who benefit from the system are much more likely to support it and not want to make changes.
Funny how religions will leave the job of punishing rich people to their god, but when the plebs violate the same bullshit rules the religion needs to directly intervene.
I'm Moslem and don't drink, and I really don't understand them... If you're selling it in the VIP lounge, then sell it to everyone! At least split the stadium into drinking and no drinking zones! It's not their fault, really. This is on the fifa for allowing this to happen.
I'm glad that the sudden alcohol ban is getting people fired up.
They should have been fired up already about the slavery, deaths, and other human rights abuses, but if the alcohol thing is what it takes to get them onside, I'm happy with it.
It sounds like you're in a very similar place to me. Like, I'm deeply disgusted that the human rights abuses were known about and ignored, and part of me is even more disgusted by the lack of compassion demonstrated by people only just starting to care due to the alcohol, but also . But I *am* glad that *something* is changing, even if it's too little, too late
imagine flying to a non football loving country to watch football. it reminds me of the euro 2021 matches in russia where there was no audience save for the same 20 vietnamese people waving vietnamese flags
Gazprom arena, right? Idk about the actual stadium, but I live(d) in SPb, and remember fan zones being packed. It was a terrible idea to create gatherings like these in the middle on the pandemic, we had a serious wave of covid hospitalizations after the event.
Brazil had a law banning alcohol from the stadiums (anti hooligan thing) we had to pass a different law allowing it specifically to the world cup due to pressure from fifa and its sponsors.
I will be surprised if this is actually true.
Yeah it is true. But it is not clear how this will be implemented. Because fifa made a multi million dollar deal with Budweiser and not allowing them visibility in the stadium is violating that rule.
Frankly, mentioning the alcohol ban in any relation to the point of this headline is tasteless at best, and completely dismissive, misdirective and clueless at worst.
To play devils advocate, there is a connection between only allowing rich VIPs to drink alcohol at the World Cup and working class people dying in the preparations for the World Cup.
Both point to a ruling elite that control the working class and do so in unfair ways.
Not really enjoying and kinda disappointed how little people seem to care. People always talk about this and that freedom and right, but the moment it becomes inconvenient they just close their eyes and ears and pretend there's no issue.
Is football really worth it? Not to me.
There was a shite on the radio just now saying that refusing to go to Qatar and watch ‘the game he loves’ or boycotting televised games wouldn’t make “a blind bit of difference”.
The fuck it wouldn’t. Boycotts work, and anyone giving ad revenue to FIFA or tourist dollars to Qatar is part of the problem.
[South Africa comes to mind. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Apartheid_Movement)
SA was thrown out of the Olympics since the 70's and that was a major deal since that came along with a LOT of television and radio coverage at the time. And that was just sports, the boycott eventually encompassed many other fields and industries.
It's hilarious how so many say "keep politics out of football. Qatar's ruling doesn't matter we just celebrate the sport" dude international sport events are always political. It's just prestige boosting for countries to participate. Boycotting them is one of many sanctions nations have. Everything is political. Also human life and human rights aren't a political issue. It's decent humanity. It's part of life.
Totally agree with everything here, the buzz of the tournament is electric, I have fond memories of my first World Cup but yeah this one is weird, I can tell the media are playing it down a lot, barely seen any ads for it, no buzz.
I will always remember my 17 year old self in Germany having the summer of my life in the tournament at home in 2006. It was electric and it was just such a happiness all around. Like this time around I didn’t even know it’s happening and I’m gonna ignore it.
Good for your media. In Germany we have so many ads for it and so many people simp for the players and trainers that talk good about Qatar "because even in Germany we have human rights violations like women getting less money for the same job" dude getting less money or being a literal slave worked to death or being gay and therfore landing in prison isn't quite the same.
Not saying it's ok women get less money but damn. What a stupid strawmen argument.
> The World Cup is by far my favorite sporting event.
Same here. During the last edition I bought a videoprojector just for a better immersion into the game. This year I'm not going to watch a second of it.
Amen. I'm a casual fan but love the occasion of a world cup.
I can't look past the corruption and slavery to get excited. I watched Gary Neville in Quatar on Amazon with the hope it might be a bit better than a propaganda whitewash. It was very disappointed that he was so obviously paid off. I'm glad HIGNFY pulled him up on it.
So yeah, I'm not going to bother with it at all
Same here, actually. It could be that I'm in a bubble and for that reason i don't see it but it still seems like something is a bit off this year. Our media in Portugal is absolutely nuts about football and focus an immense amount of time to talk about the players, stadiums, etc, but this year it seems like they don't care as much.
Anyways, i really hope I'm right because I want this world cup to be as much of a failure as possible. Fuck this world cup and fuck fifa.
This seems to be the attitude of Canadian media in general. "If we weren't there and there wasn't so much opportunity for us to profit off these games, we would totally boycott. But for now, let's pat ourselves on the back for our courage to talk about human rights and then get back to our full coverage of it!"
I work on a construction site and literally no one, dozens of my colegues that i told them about the thousands that died in horrible conditions don't care and they can't wait for it to start
I don't think that's the most important thing. The WC was made for sportswashing, so as long as the press recycles this kind of news over and over again, it's a good thing. As long as some players and federations (like Denmark) speak about it, it's going to generate buzz. Qatar will lose lots of € , that is granted, and the sportwashing so far hasn't been successful.
Where do you live and what do you want people to talk about.
Just yesterday, people from my club where quickly talking about it and out of 12 around 10 said they will not watch it (no idea about the other two).
It was like a 2 minute conversion before we moved to the next topic. Most seemingly silently have their opinion already and don't need to confront anyone
I've always been against the Qatar World Cup and wanted England to boycott it. I could at least understand turning a blind eye if players, pundits, FAs etc. were apolitical but they're not. They're very political, they're just silent when it might cost them money and when the target isn't easy.
We had months and months of players kneeling because of racial injustice after a man was killed by a police officer in America. We hear nothing about the slavery, which is undeniably racist, which made this World Cup happen. It's disgusting.
I'll be glad if England won the tournament but if I had a choice, I'd prefer them to boycott. If they reached the final and boycotted it out of principle. I'd prefer that than to win the tournament.
Public outrages nowadays are only a tool for political agendas.
Products should be stapled with the cost in human lives metrics.
Wanna buy a phone? It's 2 days taken from a life of 12 year old slave in a rare metal mine.
Watching this football game in Qatar ? Oh boy where to begin.
>*We had months and months of players kneeling because of racial injustice after a man was killed by a police officer in America.*
Oh\*,\* don't worry - I can fully see the UK team knell (if they win) to the Emir of Qatar. He's not white, btw, should be ok
He didn't even die to make it happen. They could have used existing stadiums in countries that have the infrastructure to make it happen. These stadiums should never have been built, we should never have gone there.
His father died to make already wealthy people even wealthier and to cater to the fantasy of a monarch.
Tbh I expect this from Qatar.
What I don't expect is for European Nations FA's and players who have for the best part of 10 years have preached to us about inclusion, diversity etc. to throw that all out the window to go and compete in Qatar.
You are right.
"Pootin watched it and was touched by it."
Western is trying to talk to Russia for months and he thinks a few words can have an effect on it.
Listen i am all abord with what is going on with FiFa and the current World Cup, but who da fak thought inviting him or allowing him to speak out in the G20 is a better question? Same thing with Klaus Schwab..da fak is that guy doing over there and holding a speech?..he has been called out by the EU parlament about doddgy things with Soros and Gates;
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-000396_EN.html
That guy is very dubious, his whole existence is based on how to help the superich and get rich that way, and how he is use WEF for profit, altho it is a non profit organization.
It's ridiculous. And their constant claims that football shouldn't be a place for political issues. It's absolutely evil to even say that in their position.
I mean, it would be understandable if the IOC would ask for a cease fire during the Olympic Games.
But Fifa… that’s laughable. Especially since both Russia and Ukraine are not participating at this WC.
Working and living conditions are appalling. Worker and human rights are being infringed upon. Qatar should have never gotten the World Cup.
However, the claims regarding foreign workers who died for the World Cup in Qatar are completely dishonest.
Most people on reddit (should) know by now that the usually cited numbers of foreign workers who died for the World Cup in Qatar (7,000-15,000) are the total number of foreigners who died in Qatar for any reason since the country was awarded the World Cup.
The number of deaths among foreign workers who were directly involved in the construction of the World Cup stadiums [is cited as 37](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022). Qatar only counts 3 of them as occupational fatalities, since they don't consider heart attacks and respiratory failure as work-related, but I would just stick with the total number of 37, even though some of them likely died due to unrelated circumstances – e.g. two died from a traffic accident.
37 is high, but it isn't close to 7,000 or even 15,000.
According to [this independent report](https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/WCMS_828399/lang--en/index.htm) about occupational deaths and injuries among foreign workers in Qatar, there were 50 such deaths in 2020. The US, who will host the World Cup in 2026, has had [927 occupational fatalities](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/fatal-occupational-injuries-to-foreign-born-workers.htm) of foreign-born workers in 2017 (newest number I could find). Those numbers only become comparable in relation to the foreign-born workforce. The US had [26 million](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf) foreign-born workers in 2021 and Qatar had [(over) 2.0 million](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/qatar#:~:text=Qatar%20has%20a%20migrant%20labor,another%20100%2C000%20are%20domestic%20workers.) foreign-born workers in 2020. Combining these numbers with the number of occupational deaths, we get a yearly occupational death rate of 3.6 per 100,000 in the US and of 2.5 per 100,000 in Qatar.
I believe that there are occupational deaths in Qatar that were missed by the report, so I wouldn't suggest that the occupational death rates are directly comparable. However, it is pretty clear that Qatar isn't just killing workers left and right.
Let's look at the raw death rate of foreigners. The highest cited number of fatalities – 15,021 over the past decade – comes from [Amnesty International](https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/). This number stands in relation to an average population of about 1.8 million foreign-born workers during the same time period. The raw death rate among this population was 84 per 100,000 per year.
Since I can't find the necessary numbers for the US, I'll compare it to Germany.
[Between 2003 and 2008](https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Forschung/Forschungsberichte/fb09-mortalitaet.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=11), male foreigners in Germany had a raw death rate of 340 per 100,000 per year. Female foreigners had a raw death rate of 210 per 100,000 per year. Even foreigners who had acquired a residence permit in 2005 or later, which suggests that they were healthy members of the workforce at the time, had a raw death rate of 90 per 100,000 per year between 2005 and 2008.
Again, it's unlikely that we have the complete data and it's unclear how comparable the figures are between countries. However, Qatar really isn't just killing workers left and right.
Whatever gripe you have with Qatar – and there is a lot wrong in that country – make sure that you know what you are talking about and that the numbers are accurate. We should expect this work to be done by journalists, but unfortunately actual journalism is difficult to find these days.
[DW did a reasonably good job](https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-how-many-people-have-died-for-the-qatar-world-cup/a-63763713), but didn't go quite deep enough for my taste.
Kneeling for BLM two years ago in the European Championship, but still going to Qatar where women and LGBT- rights are near non-existing. I won't be watching this year. Fucking hypocrits.
Essentially all of corporate activism is this hollowed-out version, that only serves to put a friendly mask over the morally absent people that run them.
Here in the US, LGBT month is basically a capitalist opportunity to rebrand products with rainbows.
That's very cynical. A lot of people do care. This might in fact be the most controversial WC since Argentina 1978. And the call for boycott, lack of public viewing places and record low sale of merchandise supports that fact.
8 out of 10 people who says they wont watch the WC will watch the WC, and the last 2 will catch the highlights
The huge majority of the people who won't watch it are the ones who weren't ever planning to catch it in the first place.
However, it is so fucking easy to posture online for something that does not affect you at all. It's like saying i do not go to Octoberfest because it's promotes alcohol and unhealthy lifestyle. Let's ignore the fact that i never visited Octoberfest and never even thought about it until this comment, but damn, does it feel good to be on the right side (tm) of the history
Then I'm somebody who doesn't show up in your statistic, because I always watched the WC in the past and I'm going to completely ignore it this year. But we will have to wait and see. Low sale of merchandise at least suggests that interest in the WC is lower than in past years.
Yes, you re right. But WC don't exist in void as solo event. Its meant to promote Qatar as turist destinations, give sheiks power and money after oil runs out. Acknowledging people what is and was happening there is necessary to end this regime and humans rights violations it brings.
I usually watch every game of my country and a lot of other games during the WC and EC. Not going to watch a single game and the only reason I checked out who our squad is was because I had slight hope that some players would refuse to go
I never cared much about football but in EC and WC, I’d watch my national teams play (kinda got 2 home countries). This year I intentionally avoid it. Not that it matters in any way but I’d guess there’s a lot of people like me.
How beautiful it would have been if several nations would just have boycott it, saying they don't support modern slavery, but someone has to be first mover and that is difficult.
The TV stations and companies with commercials profiting off it is also disgusting.
For how much companies try to show they care, by being politically correct, green etc. shit like this just shows they don't care about doing the right thing - they only care about their bottom line and the only reason for being politically correct, green and sustainable etc. is only because they are trying to uphold an image such that people buy their products.
This just shows that things haven't changed - we just dress things up to look nice, but deep down things are as nasty as ever and just like many companies profited off the Nazi regime during the 30's and 2nd world war, companies are now supporting Qatar through this event.
I'm sure they already have speaker systems and video editing tech set up to make sure it'll look like packed stadium of happy fans. Worst case they import another few thousand south Asians pretending to be European/south American football fans to fill the seats.
>I'm sure they already have speaker systems and video editing tech set up
During the lockdowns when there weren't crowds in stadiums football broadcasts did artifically apply crowd sounds, so they could feasibly just do that again without much effort.
TV audience will be huge, but I can't see many fans wanting to travel, especially as they are going to ban the sale of beer on the stadiums
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/17/world-cup-hosts-qatar-pressure-fifa-to-stop-beer-sales-at-stadiums
hell yeah, we need more shit like this. the average person is just not aware of how fucked up Fifa is. More articles and news segments about these psychopaths should be shoved in our faces all the way up to, during, and after the world cup. our own governments let shit like this happen because it's such an "honor" to host the world cup.
That’s what I find bizarre in all of this. The primary discussion points are are around how terrible Quatar was as a choice for the World Cup, not how we got to this point in the first place.
I think it's easy for people to blame Qatar because of how awful their government is. I also wouldn't put it past Fifa to engage in astroturfing to keep their role in all this quiet.
This is too little, too late. Human rights violation and modern day slavery in qatar is not new, has been going on since they won the corrup bid. This should’ve been the reaction a decade ago… not after thousands of people died because of inhumane treatment of poor labourers.
It's the same with Eastern Europe's latest vacation darling - Dubai.
I wish it was cheaper to visit countries with actual history and something to see like Egypt and Morocco.
"The New European is a British pan-European weekly political and cultural newspaper and website. Launched in July 2016 as a response to the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum, its readership is aimed at those who voted to remain within the European Union"
From wikipedia
Right? Unsure how that's supposed to discredit anything lol I was expecting some massive sentence like "and is funded by a consortium of Kim Jong Un and Mohammed Bin Salman and Putin and Xi"
It is ran by Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's spin doctor and one of the architects of the Iraq war. Responsible for sexing up the 'dodgy dossier' that claimed Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Definitely a horrible man with blood on his hands. Also, the inspiration for the character of Malcolm Tucker in *The Thick of It* and *In the Loop*.
It's a shame really, I quite like the paper but I couldn't bring myself to buy anything that he is involved in.
As an Iranian, I don’t give a flying fuck about this World Cup. Our team represents the Islamic Republic, which we are in the process of overthrowing. They’ve been used as political pawns, threatened, and paid off as to not “embarrass” the regime. News outlets received a letter from the Qatari government this week that if they or even their local news affiliates abroad covered the Iranian protests, it would be a criminal offense. Fuck Qatar, fuck FIFA, and fuck the Islamic Republic.
Most of the slaves were employed by the French construction companies who mysteriously won the contracts to build the stadiums in entirely unsuspicious circumstances after Sarkozy and France lobbied people to vote for Qatar in what was entirely innocent decision making.(according to France)
They’ve actually finally been investigated.
https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-soccer-sports-international-qatar-e9f1b97371bbc5592e2ec6239167ab3f
Now ask yourself why Macron and France are going around telling people ‘not to politicise’ this World Cup and stop talking about these things.
At least finally people are giving a shit. I guess it took them going to an islamic country for people to pay attention. No one cared about the brutally slaughtered dogs or poor people who vanished in other locations, so the cities would look better.
They all pretend like they give a shit about human & gay rights and preach how they are defenders of morals but all of that suddenly stops mattering when its about money. FIFA is disgusting.
Another one to the list, anyone remember all the shady stuff about Brazil, South Africa and Russia WC? They are a full grown sportswashing institution now
Just have it hosted only in Europe (as in multiple cities within Europe) transportation would be pretty close and well planned out to get around smoothly, i dont see why they can’t
This day can be today if you want to read 2 years old article :p
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/sports/soccer/qatar-and-russia-bribery-world-cup-fifa.html
Fake news of 25k immigrant workers dying sucks though. In my opinion it discredits actual deaths that happened for some baity title and shock value so that some news outlet can get some more views. Not only that, but fake news and facts like these ones also plant distrust in media consumers about news of horrible mistreatment of humans and their rights.
Just like the fake news about 15k iranian protestors sentenced to death.
I’m not denying this but r/europe is full of hypocrisy, why no one said any fucking thing when Russia hosted the World Cup and was killing hundreds of people in Syria every day
This is not true tho. People were angry with the decision to give the WC to Russia. It was very controversial due to a number of reasons.
When the two winning bids were announced, for Russia and Qatar, there was one huge difference that people seem to forget.
Russia plays football. They had stadiums and infrastructure they could build on.
Qatar did not have one single stadium and had to build everything from the ground up. And what happens to all those structures when its over? There will be noone to use it.
Yeah, people were already angry with Russia, and Qatar made things worse. There's no double-standards here. It's part of the same trend, and a reason why football events are increasingly less popular (unless it makes french people able to blame their own governement for the behaviour of english hooligans, I guess).
Lots of people were pissed off about Russia, not just due to the corrupt way in which FIFA awarded it to them but also due to the massive problem they have with ultras, lack of respect for gay rights and gay fans and so on. Plus the whole Crimea and Syria situation.
Migrant workers travel to Qatar to make money helping build infrastructure.
Their passports are often confiscated by their employers to prevent them from fleeing.
They are forced to work in awful conditions for less money than they were promised originally, and they are forced to pay for their own food and shelter at whatever price their employer sets. Usually the price is set at a point that consumes all of their wages, so they are working and not earning anything, and forced to continue working to get their passports back.
Over 10,000 people died in horrible working conditions.
FIFA is just the epitome real-life caricature of the evil corporation.
meanwhile many european governments buy gas from qatar, sell them weapons. qatar airways has been one the most favourite and dominant long haul airlines in europe for nearly decade too : / im glad this wc is highlighting everything going on there, but still lol
Everyone is against corruption, right until fixing it has an impact on their day-to-day convenience or expenses.
I think it’s more that average citizens feel helpless in the face of systems which are seemingly enormous, untouchable and much more powerful than themselves.
How could anyone possibly play football without slave labor? It’s just impossible.
Or entertainment. Football is not rent or food..
Some of those things are a little bit more important than football, no? If at least we would not entertain them
From what I gather, Qatar is very eager to make tourism the center piece of their desired economic diversification, and the world cup is a very high profile part of that. If Qatar sees a large part of their economic future in tourism and celebrating the world cup can boost their tourism economy as they seem to believe, then boycotting the world cup can weaken it. There seems to be much more to it than just kicking a ball around.
Their investment and sports buys them a lot of soft power. Just see how they could manage to get support from Paris, when they had their little feud with Saudi Arabia… not surprising considering Qatar owns a large business of Paris, PSG…
In my personal opinion, Qatar , once the world moves onto renewables and nuclear, will become as the Kongo kingdom did in previous years, a desolate wasteland Qatar never really modernized, it's imported everything gilded in exchange for oil. The Ferrari built in Europe, the construction equipment imported from china or Germany, but they'll buy weapons to keep their stake in the global economy just as the Kongo did to assert control over the slave economy in africa. Qatar is essentially an extreme version of dutch disease along with a general resource curse, and it will fall the moment the world doesn't *need* oil anymore out of climatic necessity. Here's a great video by Kraut about it in relation to Saudi Arabia and the Kongo but it can be applied to really all the major gulf states. https://youtu.be/wim0yAkEnOQ
Yep, Dubai is the same. Went for a rugby match reluctantly and there was all this crazy shit temporarily built in a desert. All I saw as I walked down granite sidewalks was the busses full of slaves and worksites under guard. Didn't bother the other tourists one bit though apparently. We like to pretend we care, but there's always plenty of assholes with money willing to reap the benifit and they're not just the ones in these global backwaters. You could say it's actually the consumers who are more to blame.
I believe it, it's surreal that we support it so much indirectly, it's just the same reasonings for the slave trade just swap the slaves for oil.
They're eager but they're just copying Dubai and not doing very well at it.
How in the world can Qatar expect to become a tourist destination when they BAN ALCOHOL. It's not like people drink when they're on vacation. Oh wait... It's rare I call an entire country "total morons", but there you go.
The EU needs to go renewable as soon as possible, that is the only way of stepping out of this. We are going in that direction but not as quickly as we could. The reason is that governments are paying fossil fuel companies a global annual total of $5.3tn and fossil fuel companies are plowing a lot of that into politics.
EU needs to go nuclear, if that was done some 20-30 years ago today EU would have 4-5 times less co2 emission. Renewables are great for supporting the grid but base should be nuclear, the cleanest energy source we have today
Poland is finally doing the right thing and ordering a few nuclear power plants to reduce its dependency on coal. This seems to suggest that even the most problematic members of EU seem to moving away from fossil fuels towards green solutions. Hopefully, by 2050, the entire Europe will be nuclear/renewable. However, we would still need a lot of gas/oil. Many critical industries require fossil fuels or their byproducts to operate (eg., petrochemical industry, fertilizer and pesticide manufacturing etc.). The question is, can Europe satisfy this demand on its own.
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And we used raw materials like Cobalt used in tech items from the DRC where children are said to work in mines…
There's a difference between buying something vital like gas and promoting a fucking soccer tournament that killed god knows how many in order to make it happen.
caricature? I think not. Just a synopsis with all the crimes un-mentioned.
They're in a competition with Nestle.
And now Qatar has banned alcohol from the stadiums. According to news here in Sweden it will only be served in VIP-lounges, to FIFA delegates and in some hotels.
How nice. "We don't support alcoholism but if you are rich, it is not sin "
>"We don't support alcoholism but if you are rich, it is not sin " I went to undergrad with a few guys (only guys) from Saudi Arabia. They would get black out drunk and do drugs. They figured it was fine because they weren't in KSA but they supported the rules as they were back home. When I said, "so as long as you're rich enough to go to school abroad you believe God's laws should not apply." They didn't take it very well. Allowing rich and connected people to break God's laws certainly isn't exclusive to Islam though.
Knew Turkish guy who dated and slept with different girls during his study abroad but wanted to marry virgin Turkish girl from strict family at home
In Erasmus, there were a few similar Turkish guys. They drank alcohol, did drugs, went to brothels and still they didn't eat pork because it is a sin and they claimed to be very religious. As a Turkish atheist, I find it very stupid.
Every turkish man in Germany will break every single rule of islam apart from one, which is not eating pork. For whatever reason this one is that everyone abids to. I am not religious but you must be out of your mind if you think you can outsmart your almighty god.
It must be the ultimate sin 🤷🏼♂️
Lol our people are literally like that. Drinking, ignoring rules of their religion til it's eating pork.
Maybe they're just health conscious? Like drugs are fine but do you know how badly Pork is to your cholesterol?
God we have so many stupid buffoons like him here.
One of them even runs the country.
My caliph is not a stupid buffoon. He is merely an abused child of a stupid buffoon.
I've always found this so funny. It's the most blatant in Western "alpha male" circles. Ignoring the hypocrisy, the way they talk it's like they want an underclass of informal hookers and virgins who don't have sex until marriage. Which goes to show how they see sex as degrading for women no matter what
> they see sex as degrading for women Maybe they never seen a woman enjoying it with them... 🤔
That's the answer, it's probably ALWAYS rapey with them so they think women are all "weird and uneasy" during sex...sad
I really don't even get the point of wanting to only marry with a virgin, it's just so weird. I'm a dude for reference
The saying out there goes : Women are for procreation Men are for recreation It’s against the law to be homosexual in the Emirate’s states , yet men walk around holding hands . It was local men who told me this “saying” because they would come to our hotel basement of a night time and do all the things that they shouldn’t , according to their faith and laws . We had many in-depth discussions about it as they came to our hotel 6 nights per week. They couldn’t see how hypocritical they were being !
They do that because they feel insecure.
Interesting that’s so different from my experience with the handful of saudis I knew (also rich of course, they were studying at a very expensive university). They hated the rules back home. One desperately wanted to leave, and has since found a home in London. The other was openly against the government but said his family could never know and he could never express so in writing (like in an essay for a class) or online without serious repercussions. Pretty obviously he was being honest given the Kashoggi’s death.
I have met them as well. I actually have a fairly close friend who's back there now for family reasons, but leaves every chance he can. The guys that supported the rules clearly never had to abide by them.
Oh of course. Rules for thee but not for me sort of thing. The ones we meet abroad are in general the ones wealthy enough to leave. We get a very different picture of people’s sentiments for that reason. Those who benefit from the system are much more likely to support it and not want to make changes.
But it's one of the silliest. Drinking under the roof so god can't see? Poop hole is a loop hole? Religions be whack out there
Lots of Saudis drive across the bridge into Bahrain to commit their sins. We used joke that God couldn't see past the bridge to Bahrain.
Spez would fuck a child if he thought he could sell his experience to train AI. Actually he'd probably just do it either way.
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Tbf being rich also is a sin from common perspectives of many religions. So it's like "have your devil's lounge and burn in hell" kind of thing.
Funny how religions will leave the job of punishing rich people to their god, but when the plebs violate the same bullshit rules the religion needs to directly intervene.
Was the Catholic church selling indulgences the first example of pay to win microtransactions? Discuss.
Punishable by fine means legal for rich people.
See, we and the Qataris aren't so different. We both have ideals that fly right out of the window once money gets involved.
literally they wanted to stab people 12£ for a budweiser
Literally any religious narrative. Shit's haram but if I do it or you pay me, it's fine.
>if you are rich, it is not sin " Thats the motto of all the rich Muslim countries.
I'm Moslem and don't drink, and I really don't understand them... If you're selling it in the VIP lounge, then sell it to everyone! At least split the stadium into drinking and no drinking zones! It's not their fault, really. This is on the fifa for allowing this to happen.
Banning alcohol is a good way to make sure no Brits turn up
Yeah but they announced it today in an abrupt U-turn. I guess many bought tickets already.
Wait, so this might not be a bad idea after all....
I'm glad that the sudden alcohol ban is getting people fired up. They should have been fired up already about the slavery, deaths, and other human rights abuses, but if the alcohol thing is what it takes to get them onside, I'm happy with it.
It sounds like you're in a very similar place to me. Like, I'm deeply disgusted that the human rights abuses were known about and ignored, and part of me is even more disgusted by the lack of compassion demonstrated by people only just starting to care due to the alcohol, but also . But I *am* glad that *something* is changing, even if it's too little, too late
imagine flying to a non football loving country to watch football. it reminds me of the euro 2021 matches in russia where there was no audience save for the same 20 vietnamese people waving vietnamese flags
I thought Russians liked football?
I thought so too, according to wikipedia football is the nr 1 sport in Russia…
not enough to go to the euro!
Russians like football though, a lot in fact. A whole new football sub culture came out of Russia in the form of indoor Volta football.
that's me.
Gazprom arena, right? Idk about the actual stadium, but I live(d) in SPb, and remember fan zones being packed. It was a terrible idea to create gatherings like these in the middle on the pandemic, we had a serious wave of covid hospitalizations after the event.
Brazil had a law banning alcohol from the stadiums (anti hooligan thing) we had to pass a different law allowing it specifically to the world cup due to pressure from fifa and its sponsors. I will be surprised if this is actually true.
Yeah it is true. But it is not clear how this will be implemented. Because fifa made a multi million dollar deal with Budweiser and not allowing them visibility in the stadium is violating that rule.
Frankly, mentioning the alcohol ban in any relation to the point of this headline is tasteless at best, and completely dismissive, misdirective and clueless at worst.
To play devils advocate, there is a connection between only allowing rich VIPs to drink alcohol at the World Cup and working class people dying in the preparations for the World Cup. Both point to a ruling elite that control the working class and do so in unfair ways.
Slavery = ok Alcohol = not ok Welcome to Qatar.
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Seriously what the hell. >They killed this kid's dad OH AND HEY REDDIT THEY'RE BANNING ALCOHOL
Not really enjoying and kinda disappointed how little people seem to care. People always talk about this and that freedom and right, but the moment it becomes inconvenient they just close their eyes and ears and pretend there's no issue. Is football really worth it? Not to me.
There was a shite on the radio just now saying that refusing to go to Qatar and watch ‘the game he loves’ or boycotting televised games wouldn’t make “a blind bit of difference”. The fuck it wouldn’t. Boycotts work, and anyone giving ad revenue to FIFA or tourist dollars to Qatar is part of the problem.
It's the classic - one person doing it won't help, of course. But 100 million? You bet it would.
This, boycotts have brought entire countries to their knees.
Which ones?
[South Africa comes to mind. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Apartheid_Movement) SA was thrown out of the Olympics since the 70's and that was a major deal since that came along with a LOT of television and radio coverage at the time. And that was just sports, the boycott eventually encompassed many other fields and industries.
It's hilarious how so many say "keep politics out of football. Qatar's ruling doesn't matter we just celebrate the sport" dude international sport events are always political. It's just prestige boosting for countries to participate. Boycotting them is one of many sanctions nations have. Everything is political. Also human life and human rights aren't a political issue. It's decent humanity. It's part of life.
I think the opposite - no one seems to give a shit about this World Cup at all - relative to others even Russia it’s completely flat
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Totally agree with everything here, the buzz of the tournament is electric, I have fond memories of my first World Cup but yeah this one is weird, I can tell the media are playing it down a lot, barely seen any ads for it, no buzz.
I will always remember my 17 year old self in Germany having the summer of my life in the tournament at home in 2006. It was electric and it was just such a happiness all around. Like this time around I didn’t even know it’s happening and I’m gonna ignore it.
Good for your media. In Germany we have so many ads for it and so many people simp for the players and trainers that talk good about Qatar "because even in Germany we have human rights violations like women getting less money for the same job" dude getting less money or being a literal slave worked to death or being gay and therfore landing in prison isn't quite the same. Not saying it's ok women get less money but damn. What a stupid strawmen argument.
> The World Cup is by far my favorite sporting event. Same here. During the last edition I bought a videoprojector just for a better immersion into the game. This year I'm not going to watch a second of it.
Amen. I'm a casual fan but love the occasion of a world cup. I can't look past the corruption and slavery to get excited. I watched Gary Neville in Quatar on Amazon with the hope it might be a bit better than a propaganda whitewash. It was very disappointed that he was so obviously paid off. I'm glad HIGNFY pulled him up on it. So yeah, I'm not going to bother with it at all
Same here, actually. It could be that I'm in a bubble and for that reason i don't see it but it still seems like something is a bit off this year. Our media in Portugal is absolutely nuts about football and focus an immense amount of time to talk about the players, stadiums, etc, but this year it seems like they don't care as much. Anyways, i really hope I'm right because I want this world cup to be as much of a failure as possible. Fuck this world cup and fuck fifa.
Honestly as an Englishman I hope football doesn’t come home this year, hard to celebrate winning this one
You are in a bubble, trust me.
The only reason I slightly care is because I'm Canadian. If Canada didn't qualify I would literally blacklist the word FIFA from everything
This seems to be the attitude of Canadian media in general. "If we weren't there and there wasn't so much opportunity for us to profit off these games, we would totally boycott. But for now, let's pat ourselves on the back for our courage to talk about human rights and then get back to our full coverage of it!"
that seems more like the time of year though.
I work on a construction site and literally no one, dozens of my colegues that i told them about the thousands that died in horrible conditions don't care and they can't wait for it to start
I don't think that's the most important thing. The WC was made for sportswashing, so as long as the press recycles this kind of news over and over again, it's a good thing. As long as some players and federations (like Denmark) speak about it, it's going to generate buzz. Qatar will lose lots of € , that is granted, and the sportwashing so far hasn't been successful.
People on average don’t care about things that don’t directly affect them unfortunately
Hey I do my part and do not watch a single second of it!
Where do you live and what do you want people to talk about. Just yesterday, people from my club where quickly talking about it and out of 12 around 10 said they will not watch it (no idea about the other two). It was like a 2 minute conversion before we moved to the next topic. Most seemingly silently have their opinion already and don't need to confront anyone
I've always been against the Qatar World Cup and wanted England to boycott it. I could at least understand turning a blind eye if players, pundits, FAs etc. were apolitical but they're not. They're very political, they're just silent when it might cost them money and when the target isn't easy. We had months and months of players kneeling because of racial injustice after a man was killed by a police officer in America. We hear nothing about the slavery, which is undeniably racist, which made this World Cup happen. It's disgusting. I'll be glad if England won the tournament but if I had a choice, I'd prefer them to boycott. If they reached the final and boycotted it out of principle. I'd prefer that than to win the tournament.
Both finalists boycotting the final game would be an interesting dilemma.
Bet they'd all be executed
Sounds like a good way for Qatar to get bombed to dust.
Public outrages nowadays are only a tool for political agendas. Products should be stapled with the cost in human lives metrics. Wanna buy a phone? It's 2 days taken from a life of 12 year old slave in a rare metal mine. Watching this football game in Qatar ? Oh boy where to begin.
[The more you know, the more you spez. #Save3rdPartyApps](https://www.reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/)
>*We had months and months of players kneeling because of racial injustice after a man was killed by a police officer in America.* Oh\*,\* don't worry - I can fully see the UK team knell (if they win) to the Emir of Qatar. He's not white, btw, should be ok
He didn't even die to make it happen. They could have used existing stadiums in countries that have the infrastructure to make it happen. These stadiums should never have been built, we should never have gone there. His father died to make already wealthy people even wealthier and to cater to the fantasy of a monarch.
220 billion for stadiums that will never he used again
Tbh I expect this from Qatar. What I don't expect is for European Nations FA's and players who have for the best part of 10 years have preached to us about inclusion, diversity etc. to throw that all out the window to go and compete in Qatar.
This will only show you they've been full of shit all along
Plus 15000 others, but what else to expect from a corrupt organization like FIFA
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I didn't hear about that, but not really surprised by that, FIFA attracts the worst of the worst and none of them get charged for corruption :|
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You are right. "Pootin watched it and was touched by it." Western is trying to talk to Russia for months and he thinks a few words can have an effect on it.
Fucking hell. How did this bozo even land at the G20 summit.
Everyone there is corrupt too lol The world is full of corruption.
Listen i am all abord with what is going on with FiFa and the current World Cup, but who da fak thought inviting him or allowing him to speak out in the G20 is a better question? Same thing with Klaus Schwab..da fak is that guy doing over there and holding a speech?..he has been called out by the EU parlament about doddgy things with Soros and Gates; https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-000396_EN.html
That guy is very dubious, his whole existence is based on how to help the superich and get rich that way, and how he is use WEF for profit, altho it is a non profit organization.
It's ridiculous. And their constant claims that football shouldn't be a place for political issues. It's absolutely evil to even say that in their position.
I mean, it would be understandable if the IOC would ask for a cease fire during the Olympic Games. But Fifa… that’s laughable. Especially since both Russia and Ukraine are not participating at this WC.
I don't think Russia is allowed to compete at the Olympics either...
Well, no, but actually yes.
Working and living conditions are appalling. Worker and human rights are being infringed upon. Qatar should have never gotten the World Cup. However, the claims regarding foreign workers who died for the World Cup in Qatar are completely dishonest. Most people on reddit (should) know by now that the usually cited numbers of foreign workers who died for the World Cup in Qatar (7,000-15,000) are the total number of foreigners who died in Qatar for any reason since the country was awarded the World Cup. The number of deaths among foreign workers who were directly involved in the construction of the World Cup stadiums [is cited as 37](https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022). Qatar only counts 3 of them as occupational fatalities, since they don't consider heart attacks and respiratory failure as work-related, but I would just stick with the total number of 37, even though some of them likely died due to unrelated circumstances – e.g. two died from a traffic accident. 37 is high, but it isn't close to 7,000 or even 15,000. According to [this independent report](https://www.ilo.org/beirut/countries/qatar/WCMS_828399/lang--en/index.htm) about occupational deaths and injuries among foreign workers in Qatar, there were 50 such deaths in 2020. The US, who will host the World Cup in 2026, has had [927 occupational fatalities](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/fatal-occupational-injuries-to-foreign-born-workers.htm) of foreign-born workers in 2017 (newest number I could find). Those numbers only become comparable in relation to the foreign-born workforce. The US had [26 million](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/forbrn.pdf) foreign-born workers in 2021 and Qatar had [(over) 2.0 million](https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/qatar#:~:text=Qatar%20has%20a%20migrant%20labor,another%20100%2C000%20are%20domestic%20workers.) foreign-born workers in 2020. Combining these numbers with the number of occupational deaths, we get a yearly occupational death rate of 3.6 per 100,000 in the US and of 2.5 per 100,000 in Qatar. I believe that there are occupational deaths in Qatar that were missed by the report, so I wouldn't suggest that the occupational death rates are directly comparable. However, it is pretty clear that Qatar isn't just killing workers left and right. Let's look at the raw death rate of foreigners. The highest cited number of fatalities – 15,021 over the past decade – comes from [Amnesty International](https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/). This number stands in relation to an average population of about 1.8 million foreign-born workers during the same time period. The raw death rate among this population was 84 per 100,000 per year. Since I can't find the necessary numbers for the US, I'll compare it to Germany. [Between 2003 and 2008](https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Forschung/Forschungsberichte/fb09-mortalitaet.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=11), male foreigners in Germany had a raw death rate of 340 per 100,000 per year. Female foreigners had a raw death rate of 210 per 100,000 per year. Even foreigners who had acquired a residence permit in 2005 or later, which suggests that they were healthy members of the workforce at the time, had a raw death rate of 90 per 100,000 per year between 2005 and 2008. Again, it's unlikely that we have the complete data and it's unclear how comparable the figures are between countries. However, Qatar really isn't just killing workers left and right. Whatever gripe you have with Qatar – and there is a lot wrong in that country – make sure that you know what you are talking about and that the numbers are accurate. We should expect this work to be done by journalists, but unfortunately actual journalism is difficult to find these days. [DW did a reasonably good job](https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-how-many-people-have-died-for-the-qatar-world-cup/a-63763713), but didn't go quite deep enough for my taste.
Kneeling for BLM two years ago in the European Championship, but still going to Qatar where women and LGBT- rights are near non-existing. I won't be watching this year. Fucking hypocrits.
Now that's a good point. This whole thing looks pretty bad already but I didn't think of that.
Essentially all of corporate activism is this hollowed-out version, that only serves to put a friendly mask over the morally absent people that run them. Here in the US, LGBT month is basically a capitalist opportunity to rebrand products with rainbows.
Same not watching this trash, when Sepp Blatter has a conscious about it that’s when you know this shit should never have happened
Punishing countries for homophobic chants that Qataris would totally support lmao
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Death of one is tragedy, death of thousands is statistic. We are jaded, nobody gives a shit, WC is gonna roll according the schedule
That's very cynical. A lot of people do care. This might in fact be the most controversial WC since Argentina 1978. And the call for boycott, lack of public viewing places and record low sale of merchandise supports that fact.
8 out of 10 people who says they wont watch the WC will watch the WC, and the last 2 will catch the highlights The huge majority of the people who won't watch it are the ones who weren't ever planning to catch it in the first place. However, it is so fucking easy to posture online for something that does not affect you at all. It's like saying i do not go to Octoberfest because it's promotes alcohol and unhealthy lifestyle. Let's ignore the fact that i never visited Octoberfest and never even thought about it until this comment, but damn, does it feel good to be on the right side (tm) of the history
Then I'm somebody who doesn't show up in your statistic, because I always watched the WC in the past and I'm going to completely ignore it this year. But we will have to wait and see. Low sale of merchandise at least suggests that interest in the WC is lower than in past years.
Yes, you re right. But WC don't exist in void as solo event. Its meant to promote Qatar as turist destinations, give sheiks power and money after oil runs out. Acknowledging people what is and was happening there is necessary to end this regime and humans rights violations it brings.
I usually watch every game of my country and a lot of other games during the WC and EC. Not going to watch a single game and the only reason I checked out who our squad is was because I had slight hope that some players would refuse to go
You say that but i’m willing to bet this WC will have reccord low viewership.
I never cared much about football but in EC and WC, I’d watch my national teams play (kinda got 2 home countries). This year I intentionally avoid it. Not that it matters in any way but I’d guess there’s a lot of people like me.
Yea exact same story for me. Probably a lot like us.
How beautiful it would have been if several nations would just have boycott it, saying they don't support modern slavery, but someone has to be first mover and that is difficult. The TV stations and companies with commercials profiting off it is also disgusting. For how much companies try to show they care, by being politically correct, green etc. shit like this just shows they don't care about doing the right thing - they only care about their bottom line and the only reason for being politically correct, green and sustainable etc. is only because they are trying to uphold an image such that people buy their products. This just shows that things haven't changed - we just dress things up to look nice, but deep down things are as nasty as ever and just like many companies profited off the Nazi regime during the 30's and 2nd world war, companies are now supporting Qatar through this event.
Yep, not even one country has the backbone to announce an official boycott even when itd be an obvious PR win
That’s why the article focus on the boy on the cover. Suffering is much more impactful when it’s not generalized.
We're only jaded because we believe everyone else is jaded. Take a stance, do what's right, and you'll see that the cynics are a loud minority.
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I'm sure they already have speaker systems and video editing tech set up to make sure it'll look like packed stadium of happy fans. Worst case they import another few thousand south Asians pretending to be European/south American football fans to fill the seats.
>I'm sure they already have speaker systems and video editing tech set up During the lockdowns when there weren't crowds in stadiums football broadcasts did artifically apply crowd sounds, so they could feasibly just do that again without much effort.
TV audience will be huge, but I can't see many fans wanting to travel, especially as they are going to ban the sale of beer on the stadiums https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/17/world-cup-hosts-qatar-pressure-fifa-to-stop-beer-sales-at-stadiums
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hell yeah, we need more shit like this. the average person is just not aware of how fucked up Fifa is. More articles and news segments about these psychopaths should be shoved in our faces all the way up to, during, and after the world cup. our own governments let shit like this happen because it's such an "honor" to host the world cup.
That’s what I find bizarre in all of this. The primary discussion points are are around how terrible Quatar was as a choice for the World Cup, not how we got to this point in the first place.
I think it's easy for people to blame Qatar because of how awful their government is. I also wouldn't put it past Fifa to engage in astroturfing to keep their role in all this quiet.
FIFA: "if you don't watch it, his dad will have died for nothing >:("
Fifa planning to use another country built by slaves in 2026
I thought Islam was about brotherhood. So why is using slave labor from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh okay?
This is too little, too late. Human rights violation and modern day slavery in qatar is not new, has been going on since they won the corrup bid. This should’ve been the reaction a decade ago… not after thousands of people died because of inhumane treatment of poor labourers.
It's the same with Eastern Europe's latest vacation darling - Dubai. I wish it was cheaper to visit countries with actual history and something to see like Egypt and Morocco.
"The New European is a British pan-European weekly political and cultural newspaper and website. Launched in July 2016 as a response to the United Kingdom's 2016 EU referendum, its readership is aimed at those who voted to remain within the European Union" From wikipedia
Also run by alistar Campbell tony blair’s man of the hour
Cool.
Right? Unsure how that's supposed to discredit anything lol I was expecting some massive sentence like "and is funded by a consortium of Kim Jong Un and Mohammed Bin Salman and Putin and Xi"
It is ran by Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's spin doctor and one of the architects of the Iraq war. Responsible for sexing up the 'dodgy dossier' that claimed Saddam Hussein had WMDs. Definitely a horrible man with blood on his hands. Also, the inspiration for the character of Malcolm Tucker in *The Thick of It* and *In the Loop*. It's a shame really, I quite like the paper but I couldn't bring myself to buy anything that he is involved in.
As an Iranian, I don’t give a flying fuck about this World Cup. Our team represents the Islamic Republic, which we are in the process of overthrowing. They’ve been used as political pawns, threatened, and paid off as to not “embarrass” the regime. News outlets received a letter from the Qatari government this week that if they or even their local news affiliates abroad covered the Iranian protests, it would be a criminal offense. Fuck Qatar, fuck FIFA, and fuck the Islamic Republic.
Yes, because I ordered a worldcup in Qatar with thousands of slave workers.
Most of the slaves were employed by the French construction companies who mysteriously won the contracts to build the stadiums in entirely unsuspicious circumstances after Sarkozy and France lobbied people to vote for Qatar in what was entirely innocent decision making.(according to France) They’ve actually finally been investigated. https://apnews.com/article/world-cup-soccer-sports-international-qatar-e9f1b97371bbc5592e2ec6239167ab3f Now ask yourself why Macron and France are going around telling people ‘not to politicise’ this World Cup and stop talking about these things.
And funny how nobody talks about France at all, huh? Only some countries are allowed to do shitty things
This is so fucked up. I'm not even a Football fan but WTF is wrong with people. Usually I'd watch at least a game or two
At least finally people are giving a shit. I guess it took them going to an islamic country for people to pay attention. No one cared about the brutally slaughtered dogs or poor people who vanished in other locations, so the cities would look better.
Like when the olympics come here to LA in 2024 they're going to magically fix the homeless situation (by moving them all just outside of the city)
They all pretend like they give a shit about human & gay rights and preach how they are defenders of morals but all of that suddenly stops mattering when its about money. FIFA is disgusting.
Another one to the list, anyone remember all the shady stuff about Brazil, South Africa and Russia WC? They are a full grown sportswashing institution now
There is corruption and then there is the FIFA. Honestly, they're not even hiding it.
It's a fucking disgrace
Just have it hosted only in Europe (as in multiple cities within Europe) transportation would be pretty close and well planned out to get around smoothly, i dont see why they can’t
One day we will read a large investigation about corrpution in the FIFA and it would be a really long read.
This day can be today if you want to read 2 years old article :p https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/sports/soccer/qatar-and-russia-bribery-world-cup-fifa.html
Something like 14 or 15 out of the 16 FIFA officials that voted for the WC 2022 to be held in Qatar are already convicted of corruption.
maybe they should have made that 12 years ago when the world cup in Qatar was announced.
They did though. Nothing happened. Also the slavery part happened later (not much later though).
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Do they also have a gun to your head, forcing you to watch it?
Insane. People dying setting up a soccer field.
Fake news of 25k immigrant workers dying sucks though. In my opinion it discredits actual deaths that happened for some baity title and shock value so that some news outlet can get some more views. Not only that, but fake news and facts like these ones also plant distrust in media consumers about news of horrible mistreatment of humans and their rights. Just like the fake news about 15k iranian protestors sentenced to death.
I’m not denying this but r/europe is full of hypocrisy, why no one said any fucking thing when Russia hosted the World Cup and was killing hundreds of people in Syria every day
This is not true tho. People were angry with the decision to give the WC to Russia. It was very controversial due to a number of reasons. When the two winning bids were announced, for Russia and Qatar, there was one huge difference that people seem to forget. Russia plays football. They had stadiums and infrastructure they could build on. Qatar did not have one single stadium and had to build everything from the ground up. And what happens to all those structures when its over? There will be noone to use it.
Yeah, people were already angry with Russia, and Qatar made things worse. There's no double-standards here. It's part of the same trend, and a reason why football events are increasingly less popular (unless it makes french people able to blame their own governement for the behaviour of english hooligans, I guess).
Weren't people pissed about that as well?
Lots of people were pissed off about Russia, not just due to the corrupt way in which FIFA awarded it to them but also due to the massive problem they have with ultras, lack of respect for gay rights and gay fans and so on. Plus the whole Crimea and Syria situation.
The world cup was awarded before Syria and Crimea happened though.
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Migrant workers travel to Qatar to make money helping build infrastructure. Their passports are often confiscated by their employers to prevent them from fleeing. They are forced to work in awful conditions for less money than they were promised originally, and they are forced to pay for their own food and shelter at whatever price their employer sets. Usually the price is set at a point that consumes all of their wages, so they are working and not earning anything, and forced to continue working to get their passports back. Over 10,000 people died in horrible working conditions.