When Qatar won the right to host This World Cup it made a promise we will make sure that this is a milestone in the history of the Middle East and a milestone for FIFA but questions remain about this tiny Gulf State being the host questions about human rights the environment and how FIFA reached this moment [Applause] that choice was made by FIFA’s executive committee but even before the vote there were issues two members were suspended over allegations they’d offered to sell their votes since the decision a whistleblower has alleged three members were offered cash for votes by Qatar and U.S prosecutors have alleged that two more FIFA officials were offered and received bribe payments to vote for Qatar the FIFA officials involved and Qatar have always denied the allegations and a FIFA inquiry concluded votes weren’t sold but it also found potentially problematic conduct of specific individuals as part of qatar’s bid what we can be sure of is that most of the committee that took this decision have since been accused banned or indicted over allegations of corruption or wrongdoing and once the decision was made fast construction projects began transport hotels and stadiums seven new ones were built hundreds of thousands of foreign workers mostly from South Asia were hired and there have long been concerns about their treatment workers were exposed to a whole range of different forms of exploitation including having their passports confiscated living in squalid accommodation and in some cases it amounted to forced labor Carter though has told the BBC it’s improved conditions the work that has been done by the government in terms of labor reform what the World Cup did was it accelerated that initiative it was a catalyst for that change there have been reforms Human Rights Watch calls them significant but it also highlights ongoing wage abuse and exorbitant recruitment fees there are also widely shared claims that thousands of workers died building this world cup that’s not supported by available evidence though establishing the number of deaths is hard Qatar says there have been three work-related deaths on World Cup sites the un’s international labor organization says that is an underestimate it also says there were 50 work-related deaths in 2020 in Qatar as a whole and that most of them were migrant construction workers but the ILO acknowledges the limits to this data it’s called on Qatar to improve how it records deaths in particular related to heat stroke there’s also the environmental impact of this World Cup Guitar World Cup has set a real example in sustainability and what can be achieved I’ve never seen anything like this before certainly we’ve never seen a world cup with a carbon footprint like this before those stadiums hotels a new Metro System a million people flying in it all comes at a cost this is FIFA’s emissions estimate for the last World Cup in Russia it’s estimate for Qatar is higher but one UK University says it’s likely to be much higher than that despite this Qatar is making this claim examples of the work we are doing include organizing a fully carbon neutral World Cup that’s based on offsetting emissions and this leading climate scientist isn’t convinced the idea that they’ve somehow made it green by Cheap nasty so-called offsets that just don’t undo the damage from the emissions at all you know to become carbon neutral that just uh that doesn’t stack up at all there’s one more issue too LGBT rights this is the message to fans we welcome everybody but also we expect and we want people to respect our culture and there’s concern about what that means because homosexuality is illegal in Qatar this month the Qatari World Cup Ambassador described homosexuality as damage in the mind according to Human Rights Watch this year LGBT people have been arrested and beaten and as we consider all of these concerns let’s remember where the last World Cup was Russia after Vladimir Putin had already annexed Crimea from Ukraine big sports events often come with political and cultural tensions and compromises as well as that as the former FIFA boss set blatter said about the decision to choose Qatar of course it was also about money and that’s something cats are has a lot of this is how much was spent on each World Cup since 1990. this is what Qatar has spent and after that kind of investment this is FIFA’s message everything is ready and everyone is welcome in a letter to team Gianni Infantino has written we know football does not live in a vacuum but he urged please let’s now focus on the football it’s now for fans and players to decide to what extent they’re willing to do so.
