There was a lot of controversy over the choice of Qatar as a Football World Cup host. First, it's too damn hot to play football, second, there are few grassroots fans, the construction of the infrastructure necessary for the competition involved the deaths of thousands of migrant workers according to human rights' organisations. And that just a start. There are also persuasive allegations of corruption involving FIFA officials.

I thought it would be interesting to follow the non-sporting asides of this 'World Cup with a difference'. If you want to talk footy, then get a thread going in the Sports forum.

To kick off:
Qatar World Cup organisers apologise after threats to a Danish television crew
Associated Press
Wed 16 Nov 2022 10.36 GMT

World Cup organisers have apologised to a Danish television station whose live broadcast from a street in Doha was interrupted by Qatari officials who threatened to break their camera equipment.

Journalists from the TV2 channel “were mistakenly interrupted” late on Tuesday evening, the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy acknowledged in a statement. “Upon inspection of the crew’s valid tournament accreditation and filming permit, an apology was made to the broadcaster by on-site security before the crew resumed their activity,” organisers said.

Reporter Rasmus Tantholdt was speaking live to a news anchor in Denmark when three men drove up behind him on an electric cart and tried to block the camera lens. “You invited the whole world to come here, why can’t we film? It’s a public place,” Tantholdt was heard saying in English. “You can break the camera, you want to break it? You are threatening us by smashing the camera?”

The incident five days before the World Cup starts revisited a subject that has been sensitive for tournament organisers who have denied claims there are strict limits on where media can film in Qatar. Organisers said they later spoke to Tantholdt and also “issued an advisory to all entities to respect the filming permits in place for the tournament.”

Denmark’s football federation has also been one of the biggest critics of Qatar among the 32 World Cup teams over the emirate’s record on human rights and treatment of low-paid migrant workers. They were needed to build massive construction projects since Fifa picked Qatar as hosts in 2010.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ision-crew

More here on the exploitation of migrant workers in Qatar. (And yes,I know that they also get exploited in their home countries and elsewhere, but I just wanted to look at this in the context of this year's World Cup held in Qatar.)
Link to the full article: https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... he-coffins

This World Cup is about much more than football. I’ve seen the human cost
Migrant workers have endured exploitative, even deadly, conditions as Qatar prepared for the World Cup. The ‘beautiful game’ has blood on its hands.
Pete Pattisson
Tue 15 Nov 2022 10.30 GMT
When the Guardian published its exclusive story in September 2013 after I saw the coffins of Nepali workers returning home from the Gulf, it made headlines around the world. Football was literally coming down to a matter of life and death. There was something deeply offensive about the exploitation of some of the world’s poorest people in the name of a festival of sport.

Fifa immediately said it was “very concerned”, though clearly not concerned enough to have done its own due diligence. The next day Qatar’s World Cup organisers sent a letter to the game’s governing body assuring it that they viewed the Guardian’s findings with the “utmost seriousness”. Attached to the letter was a one-page “Workers’ Charter” setting out, in skeletal form, their commitment to workers’ rights.

We revealed that thousands of south Asian workers had died in Qatar in the decade after it won the right to host the World Cup, many from sudden and unexplained causes. The Qatari authorities have done little to investigate these deaths and countless families of the deceased have not received compensation from their employers.

Qatar World Cup Comes With Human Rights Abuses And Controversy
Samindra Kunti Contributor
Oct 31, 2022,06:33pm EDT

When Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, all the way back in 2010, it was clear what the tiny nation was trying to achieve. Hosting arguably the biggest sporting event in the world would put them on the map, show off their culture and oiled-fuelled riches, while simultaneously making their authoritarian and repressive regime come off as a model government.

There was nothing novel in this approach. Sportswashing is nothing new for FIFA — Benito Mussolini hosted the 1934 World Cup in an attempt to showcase the merits of Fascist Italy to the world while in 1978, the tournament was a tool to garner legitimacy for the military junta in Argentina. In the same ceremony that gave Qatar the rights to the 2022 event, another autocrat of questionable morality won the rights to the 2018 event for his country. FIFA clearly has no problems getting into bed with authoritarian regimes.

However, with just days left for the quadrennial showpiece, there are serious doubts as to the effectiveness of the washing part of Qatar’s sportswashing strategy. If they hoped the World Cup would cast them in a positive light, they could not have been more wrong. Mere hours after their winning bid, the discussion turned to corruption within FIFA and who Qatar had to bribe for the right to host the Cup. Then, as the tournament drew near, attention focussed on Qatar’s questionable human rights record, their treatment of migrant workers and their institutionalization of homophobia. Instead of washing themselves clean, Qatar’s ruling regime was coming off looking dirtier than ever before.
In full: https://www.forbes.com/sites/samindraku ... ntroversy/

Yep, a culture of football( or soccer) with no or limited beer is going to be a weird cultural shock for those western fans who make it to Doha for the World Cup. As in, you can, but no you can't, and especially do not drink to excess... what ? European fans go to events like this to get pissed, so what happens when they are treated like louts by shocked locals and police ? Concrete, searing heat and £12 beers: inside Doha’s World Cup fan festival
Upbeat Fifa say ‘nothing is forbidden’ at vast site, but quality of experience that awaits crowds is open to question
Sean Ingle
Wed 16 Nov 2022 17.19 GMT
In the tetchy heat of a Doha lunch hour, there was a welcome loosening of ties – and then, surprisingly, of tongues. It came as Fifa launched a World Cup fan festival so vast that 40,000 supporters will soon be able to congregate in shared communion near the Corniche: to watch, to cheer, to drink overpriced beer, if only between 7pm and 1am. Perhaps even to love, too.

Admittedly Lindhout did also urge western fans to find a middle ground between their values and those of the conservative Gulf state, which was certainly more on script. But moments later she again insisted that the culture in Qatar had changed. “Respect the culture, use your common sense but nothing is forbidden at the Fifa fan festival,” she added. “We are very proud of it.”

England fans will not be overwhelmed to learn that there is just one beer stand, selling Budweiser for nearly £12 for 500ml. Or that they will face a long queue reminiscent of a passport control in a European airport post-Brexit, to buy a maximum of four beers.

That said, there appears no limit on the amount of beer that can be ordered throughout the night. Which might lead to familiar problems when tensions are running high and the booze is flowing freely.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... pares-open

Well, good luck to all.

Builders, players, watchers, all slaves to the ball ^^
Football in Qatar as for now...

‘They are buying something’: the cash, gifts and arms cementing the Qatari-UK relationship
The gas-rich state’s influence in Britain reaches to the heart of government, and has been cultivated over decades
Thu 17 Nov 2022 06.00 GMT

As the Qatari-owned thoroughbred Lady Princess romped to victory at the Qatar Goodwood Festival, four leading MPs were enjoying the Gulf emirate’s hospitality.

The recipients at the West Sussex festival in July 2021 included the speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and Conservative MP Nigel Evans, honorary president of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on UK-Qatar relations.

In the 12 years since the tiny, gas-rich state was named as the host of World Cup 2022, reigniting scrutiny of its oppression of LGBTQ+ people and its questionable record on human rights, Qatar has doubled down on enhancing its decades-old friendship with British politicians.

At least 58 British MPs have been flown to Doha at the emirate’s expense since it was awarded in 2010, a Guardian analysis of public records shows.

Those trips have come at a cost of more than £400,000 – more than £250,000 in the last year alone. That is on top of the £4,000 worth of food, drink and accommodation donated to the quartet of MPs on that July day at Goodwood, rebranded in 2015 under a 10-year sponsorship deal, courtesy of Qatar’s ministry of sport and its UK embassy.

Over the same period, ministers have received ornaments, a rug and luxury hampers from Fortnum & Mason and Qatar-owned Harrods, while the emir sent Boris Johnson a clock in 2019 on his appointment as prime minister.

In some cases, analysis by the Observer found last month that MPs appeared to speak favourably of Qatar in parliament after benefiting from the emirate’s largesse.

Professor David Roberts, a Gulf region and defence expert at King’s College London, said: “The Qataris clearly feel that they are buying something, a certain understanding or sympathy.

“They would say it’s educating people as to their side of the story and it’s not unreasonable for them to point to the improvements they’ve made.”

But in practice, Qatar’s influence in the UK is founded on far more than hospitality and gifts.

The relationship has flourished thanks to multibillion-pound arms contracts, royal friendships, vital gas imports and £40bn of Qatari investment in the UK, all contributing to an influence network that reaches to the heart of government.

Earlier this year, the Sunday Times claimed that Qatar’s former prime minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, had given the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, €3m in charitable donations in cash between 2011 and 2015, some of it in Fortnum & Mason bags.
Full article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... lationship

Haha, the Fifa are getting what they deserve. Egg on face.

Beer could be banned from all eight World Cup stadiums in potential U-turn
Thu 17 Nov 2022 23.06 GMT
Last modified on Fri 18 Nov 2022 05.30 GMT

With just days to go until the World Cup begins, the Qatari hosts are reportedly pressuring Fifa to stop the sale of beer at the eight tournament stadiums in what would be an astonishing U-turn.

The sale of alcohol is strictly controlled in Qatar, but it is due to be available in the area immediately outside match venues and fan zones, as well as within hotels.

Budweiser is one of Fifa’s biggest sponsors but was told on Saturday to relocate stalls selling its product at stadiums to less prominent locations.

The Times reports that Qatar 2022 now wants to go even further and that discussions are ongoing between Fifa and Budweiser. A decision is expected on Friday but it is believed beer could be banned from all stadiums.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... t-stadiums

I watched this last night..I'm not the biggest football fan but as I'll hopefully be in Thailand for the second half of TWC I'll watch a few games.
It's seems a well put together and researched video.

What's the current death toll? Estimates range from 40 (Qatar's government) to 15,000 (Amnesty International).

Brazil had 8 deaths on FIFA construction sites.

How many people died for the Qatar World Cup?