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An interview that disappeared – FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022

338 points by eisa01 5y ago

eunos 5y ago
Nah moral outrage is on the Winter Olympics 2022 right now. Hard to maintain concurrent moral outrages at the same time.
- sharken 5y ago
  Ain't that the truth. The World Cup is a bigger deal than the Winter Olympics, so we can't really do the right thing. More than 6.000 dead workers due to the World Cup, the event should be stopped to avoid more deaths in future events. But nothing will happen, it's the sad truth of it all.
  - eunos 5y ago
    Nah I grew disillusioned with atrocity propaganda, consequently I'm glad that its potency starts diminishing.
    - AussieWog93 5y ago
      I was wondering what kind of person who would dismiss large scale human rights abuses as "atrocity propaganda", and holy shit I was not disappointed. You've got to have one of the edgiest profiles on this site!
- FredPret 5y ago
  Yeah too many slave labour-fueled projects going on to be upset with all of them
lordnacho 5y ago
Have to say as a football fan, it's a scandal that they're running the world cup in Qatar. A winter world cup pushes the schedules way off what's normal and traditional. That is of course not the only concern, there's also stories about dozens of people dying building these stadiums in the desert heat. There's also a heck of a lot of stories about how Qatar was able to get the world cup in the first place. It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption, which is a shame because they're supposed to be in charge of the world's favourite sport. Of course there's no accountability in any way, who even knows who their national FA rep is? I guess that's one of the perks of running a sport with that much history, people will still feel compelled to watch. One thing that's positive is that ordinary people are not ignorant about this situation. You'll find in every FB post about this there's a load of voices expressing what I've just expressed. So whatever the Qataris think they're buying with this massive outlay, they're not getting it. On the sporting side it appears they're making a decent effort of building a home grown team that isn't going to totally embarrass them, which is quite the challenge.
- smallerfish 5y ago
  > dozens Thousands in the overall construction boom. https://www.fastcompany.com/90607440/at-least-6500-workers-have-died-from-building-qatars-world-cup https://www.fastcompany.com/90607440/at-least-6500-workers-h...
  - rapnie 5y ago
    Massacre United. It is utterly shameful and deeply saddening.
  - djrockstar1 5y ago
    The number doesn't seem egregious relative to how many workers there are. The Josimar article says > In August, Amnesty released a report that documented that at least 15 000 migrant workers had died since Qatar was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010. So, 15000 deaths over 11 years, or 1,363 deaths per year. Worth noting that this number does not make a distinction between people working in Qatar for the World Cup or just anyone working in Qatar. Wikipedia says 2.3m expats as of 2017[1]. Putting the death rate at 0.59 per 1000 people per year (for 2017, the number of expats has been increasing since 2010, so the number would be higher for 2010, lower for 2021). This would put it at the very bottom of countries based on death rate[2]. (It's already at the very bottom for death rate, but here we're only looking at expats.) TL;DR The number quoted has very little to do with the number of people working on the 2022 World Cup, and isn't really alarming. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_mortality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_mortality...
    - dash2 5y ago
      Here's the original report so people can check for themselves: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/ * The death numbers are as reported by Qatar's own statistics agency and Amnesty says there are significant problems with them. * Migrant workers are working age, not elderly, so comparing this to overall death rates is probably misleading. * "69% of deaths of workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh between 2008 and 2019 were attributed to ‘natural causes’ or ‘cardiac arrest’, and contained no information about the underlying causes of death... experts consulted by Amnesty International have said that in a well-resourced health system, it should be possible to identify the cause of death in all but 1% of cases."
m4tthumphrey 5y ago
I still can't fathom how Qatar 22 is actually going ahead. The worst part is legends such as Beckham and co who are willingly endorsing it for $150m+.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  I'm sure we'd all endorse anything if someone gave us a multi-million-dollar cheque for posting a few tweets and making a few media appearances - and you can do it _guilt-free_ because you know that wherever or not you accept the bloodstained money, the event is still going to go ahead, so you might as well make-bank.
  - m4tthumphrey 5y ago
    Naively perhaps, I'd like to believe that someone like Beckham who has historically always been the face of great causes and events (UNICEF, London 2012, etc) would show some balls and actively campaign AGAINST this shit show. But instead he has taken the "if you can't beat them without trying, get paid obscene amounts of money" route. I fear that this will become his legacy and right now, I think he's ok with that.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > show some balls I see what you did there
    - rapnie 5y ago
      > I think he's ok with that. .. he and his new yacht are likely okay with that. https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/david-beckham-splashes-out-on-luxury-yacht/ar-AARWiA4 https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebr...
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      I don’t recall David Beckham ever making any particularly principled sacrifices though.
  - 5y ago
auggierose 5y ago
National teams should just boycott this World Cup. I am certainly not watching it, although I love football.
- m4tthumphrey 5y ago
  Teams pulling out would most definitely make a difference. It does make you wonder why the players/managers do not get together and... strike.
- vanilla-almond 5y ago
  The popular YouTube football channel Fifo Football made a video on whether national teams might boycott the World Cup 2022: Will Countries Boycott The Qatar World Cup? https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KL9LExsPLI https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KL9LExsPLI (TL;DR: No)
- sofixa 5y ago
  Few national teams and players would dare to boycott it. National careers are short with few possibilities for success ( one of the advantages of a World Cup every two years would be that more teams and players could have success), and just playing for the national team, let alone at the biggest competition in sport there is, is a source of pride.
  - lbriner 5y ago
    Exactly. Not only that but the chance of an entire team agreeing this is the best idea would split the team between the yays and nays. The only thing that would work would be for people not to buy tickets and not to watch the matches but sadly that is unlikely to happen. The idea that asking a government or FIFA to do anything is laughable, the world cup is far too political for most organisations to risk being blacklisted/cancelled/lose contracts/lose face whatever
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Indeed. If a few high profile teams boycotts it, then the rest would follow. Better yet, if Germany, Italy and a few others offered to host a tournament for the qualified teams (with FIFA blessing or not) maybe others would join? This is how the NHL should have treated the Olympic ice hockey tournament in China: rather than boycotting they should have simply played the games in Taiwan to make a point. Whether they would count as Olympic matches would make no difference. The kick in the groin to Chinese and Qatari bigwigs would be glorious. Millions in bribes wasted .
vanilla-almond 5y ago
"In August, Amnesty released a report that documented that at least 15 000 migrant workers had died since Qatar was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010." If these figures are true, then no matter how 'successful' the World Cup 2022 turns out, it will always be tainted by these shameful figures.
- djrockstar1 5y ago
  Quoting the Amnesty article: > Official Qatari statistics show that over 15,021 non-Qataris – of all ages and occupations – died between 2010 and 2019 I think it's worth putting the number into context. There's 2,300,000 non-Qataris in Qatar. 1,670 deaths per year puts the mortality rate at 0.72 per year per 1000 people. That's 10 times lower than the global mortality rate as of 2020.
  - kickling 5y ago
    If you look at the work related death rate among workers in the US the number is 0.035 per 1000 people. So if the deaths are work related, it is a huge number compared to the US at least. [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm]
    - djrockstar1 5y ago
      If we assume 100% of deaths over this 9 year period work workplace accidents, then yes, this number is alarming. However there's just no way that all of those deaths were work related. We can't know the true number, since there's a lack of trust towards the number provided by the Qatari Government. In the U.S. there were 2,854,838 deaths [1]. The report you linked claims 5,333 of those deaths were work-related. That means 0.18% of deaths in the US in 2019 were not work related. Now I concede that the U.S. has much better workplace safety guidelines, with OSHA and the like, compared to less developed nations. So that percentage would surely be much higher in Qatar, but how much higher? If we assume that 5% of deaths were work related in Qatar, then that 0.72 overall mortality rate becomes 0.036 per 1000 people, same as the US, with its much better workplace safety guidelines, while assuming a 29x greater percent of deaths being workplace related. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf
eisa01 5y ago
I'd encourage everyone to speak up to the sponsors of FIFA that seemingly condone the spurious arrest of these Norwegian journalists. Same with the former football athletes that promote these games The Chinese government is able to change the behavior of multinational companies, so why can't we ;) List of sponsors: Adidas, Coca-Cola, Wanda Group, Hyundai, Qatar Airways, Visa, Budweiser, Hisense, McDonalds, Vivo
grapescheesee 5y ago
Am I wrong?! 15,000 workers have died? How is a number like that acceptable? What if the event was Roman and I replaced workers with gladiators? Would the entertainment be more obviously a weight of blood? This type of wealth is a form of modern war. Albeit, the other side which follows successful, or non successful war. This is mostly paid for with oil profits.
- djrockstar1 5y ago
  15,000 construction workers working on the World Cup have not died. 15,021 non-Qataris have died. The number includes any expatriate in Qatar - teachers, managers, fast food servers, VPs - everyone. Even among construction workers, the vast majority are working on projects that have nothing to do with the World Cup. For context, something like 80% of the 2.6m people in Qatar are expatriates, and these deaths occurred over a 9 year period. You can do the math.
  - grapescheesee 5y ago
    Thank you for clarifying.
    - hluska 5y ago
      Please read the Amnesty International report. This subject is way too big and too complex to trust anyone but actual experts.
  - hluska 5y ago
    - djrockstar1 5y ago
      I'm literally just a Pakistani dude who's lived in Qatar all his life bored at work with nothing to do. Well, that or I'm a Qatari national working for the Qatari government as a social media agent, but doing programming on the side for some reason, who knows?
osivertsson 5y ago
For some background on Qatar see the Amnesty International report 2020/2021 on Qatar: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/qatar/report-qatar/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...
jsiepkes 5y ago
Does anyone know how many players have actually declined to play in Qatar because of this modern day slavery? Can't be that many because I haven't seen any news about it.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  To be cynical about it, principles don't buy you Bentleys nor does it attract trophy wives. Not that I'm saying I'm superior, I also like money and the comfort it brings me, in the current system that rules the world. Sibling comment has been modded to death by talking about players coming from countries with slavery, that seems over the top, but another online comment I've read is that in the Middle East, slavery is right there, meanwhile in the West there is a bit of distance. Who makes your clothes (probably underpaid Bangladeshi, or nowadays, Ughyurs), who makes your electronics (probably Chinese factory workers in not-so-great conditions), or who mined the minerals needed for them?
  - dfxm12 5y ago
    On the other hand, the players whose decision to boycott the games would have the intended effect of bringing some of the corruption to light and putting pressure on FIFA to not do something similar again almost certainly already have enough money to buy Bentleys and attract trophy wives. So, if a star player really feels a certain way about this, I'm not sure the money has as much sway over them as it would over someone else, like you or me, or some lesser known player (whose boycott would have much less effect).
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  I haven't heard anything like that. Seems like the world cup is just going to continue like it always does. That 400 million dollars of potential prize money, excluding all the extra ad revenue players might receive for wearing a particular brand of shoe or drinking a particular beverage, is enough to evaporate any morals. There's also the prestige factor, the dream of being crowned the best of the best. I've heard some stories of teams considering a boycot, but very few of those teams had any chance in getting through the qualification round. It's very easy to boycot an event you don't take part in. For the sake of sports, soccer teams have ignored the horrid treatment of the locals many times over. FIFA is corrupt beyond saving and the Olympic Committee isn't much different. The real game being played is that of the corrupt, taking money to ensure coca cola and friends can sell ads to enough people. We've seen massive changes in platform culture online when advertisers got scared of being associated with bad stuff, like with Elsagate on YouTube, so I think the only way to get anyone to care is to threaten the income of the parties involved. Treat any advertisement on Qatar 2022 as an endorsement of modern day slavery and be sure to let the web know how you feel. Maybe, just maybe, when the big companies start to pull out, the teams and players will suddenly find their morals again.
brianoconnor 5y ago
I don't care about football. But what can I suggest to friends who really want to see their team playing? What sort of protest is possible? Is there anything that hurts FIFA? What about the sponsors?
- lpv 5y ago
  You can suggest that they write a stern tweet or reddit comment, like everyone else who likes to pretend they're protesting so they can pat themselves on the back and then continue watching the sport.
- dfxm12 5y ago
  Most of that money comes from TV fees and sponsorships. In all honesty, whether your friends watch or not, at this point, it's probably not going to affect anything for 2022. FIFA has already secured the TV fees and they already got their sponsorship money. I mean, maybe you can suggest they not buy the official Adidas world cup ball, if they were even planning on buying it...
fatonR 5y ago
Although it won't happen, I wish some qualified teams would withdraw from the competition to take a stand against what is happening in Qatar.
- Thlom 5y ago
  Fans tried in Norway, but failed. Not that we managed to qualify anyway ...
arminiusreturns 5y ago
[dead]
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  Sigh. Yes Epstein is a vile scumbag, but he was also a rich asshole who liked networking, I don't think it's fair to associate everyone who met with him as a part of his rapey ventures. Opened your link, scrolled to the conclusions. Hah, reads like a Q-Anon writing...
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    > I don't think it's fair to associate everyone who met with him as a part of his rapey ventures. But it’s also reasonable to expect a plausible explanation. The Prince Andrew scenario comes to mind, and a blanket pass should not be given.
- ryanlol 5y ago
  >The link between [redacted], the Israeli state intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Force is not a tenuous one >One of the directors of Carbyne is [redacted]. The chairman of the board of directors is Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime Minister of Israel She’s a director of a company with a former PM on the board, pretty sure this is exactly the kind of a link that normal sane people would consider “tenuous”.
- dang 4y ago
  We've redacted some names from this subthread since its more lurid allegations appear to be unsubstantiated. HN threads often show up high in search results for people's names, so we try to be reasonably accommodating of such requests.
chunkyguy 5y ago
Football or any sport up and beyond a certain level is more about entertainment than about the actual sport.
naskwo 5y ago
Could someone here do the math: how much CO2 is emitted by air travel to Qatar for football teams + entourage + fans vs. European countries hosting the world cup games (e.g. Italy, Benelux, Spain)?
- fakedang 5y ago
  How is that any relevant? Any international competition will have a significant aviation footprint - especially something like the Olympics which involves far more countries than the World cup. In fact, I'd reckon the aviation footprint will be lower because of Qatar's relatively central position in the old world, from where fans are more likely to travel to watch a live football game. What's more relevant here from an environmental standpoint is the cost of adding lifestyle amenities (water, energy, landscaping, construction, etc) on the ground for the million or so football fans who will descend upon a country not especially designed to handle such a high volume of traffic without committing some serious ecological cost.
dcoo 5y ago
It still seems wild to me that, after discovering most of the judges who voted for Qatar to host the World Cup were bribed, everything proceeded as planned. Sepp Blatter was objectively corrupt, and Infantino is no better.
IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
I dont know what to think about migrant death rates. The rublings seem to be worrisome, but proof seems to be elusive. Then one is forced to objectively look at the facts, and things get murkier: - Migrants are willing to co tinue yo travel despite the negative press - Migrant home countries are never in the news lodging official protests or expressing serious concern. - In fact, home countries seem to do absolutely nothing to curb whatever alleged excesses could be happening. Maybe people are focused on the wrong problem. If death rates are not scandalous or even serious (outside of higher death rates consistent with industrial occupations deemed as hazardous) what seems to be unquestioned is Qatar's abuses in imprisonment of any person, migrant or not. I'd like to hear more about cases like this article. I've been to the last 5 world cups. I am seriously considering boycotting visiting because of articles like this one. Good journalistic work. Closing: Regarding someone's awful experience in school with Association Football abuse. Im sorry this happened to you. As a parent of several kids that constantly play "soccer" in every room of our house, i can tell you the sport brings immense joy to many, including little ones. As a parent, thank you for reminding me to stay alert about abuses at school masquerading as PE.
- FirstLvR 5y ago
  Migrants continue travelling because they have no other choice. Am from Latam and these stories can be heard everywhere, from people that keep moving between countries, looking for an opportunity
- alkonaut 5y ago
  > but proof seems to be elusive. Why is that? Is there no transparency and free press reporting on it? Then the numbers should be assumed to be much worse.
sys_64738 5y ago
Let’s hope that COVID causes this WC to be an attendance disaster for FIFA with empty stadiums the norm. Qatar getting the WC is bribery taken to the extreme. Let the lessons of this stop the tournament being manipulated for political and financial gains. And keep it in June when it’s meant to be.
zahma 5y ago
The tendency by FIFA and especially UEFA to prioritize money for its partners and for its officials above principles and sport has turned me away from organized football. I find it repugnant that when BBC and The Guardian (among others) reported back in 2013 on Qatar’s labor conditions in sweltering heat, the deaths, and what is essentially slavery to build stadiums, it was met by the football community and larger news media with a resounding thud. It wasn’t until the last few years that footballers who had nothing to lose started to speak their minds. It’s honestly disgusting to me to the point where I don’t know when I’ll ever want to watch the World Cup or Champion’s League again. I used to get excited by these events because the sport still seemed to be prioritized and people got genuinely excited by seeing talent rise to the level. I came of age hearing just how good Messi would become after his early appearance for Argentina in 2006 I think. His rise has witnessed the transition to players representing teams and entire brands. It hardly feels like sport but lifestyle, prestige, and entertainment, something Qatar is desperately trying to purchase as their oil money starts to dry up. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-24394971 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-24394971 Maybe there was earlier reporting on this but this was the best I could do on my phone.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  > I find it repugnant that when BBC and The Guardian (among others) reported back in 2013 on Qatar’s labor conditions in sweltering heat, the deaths, and essential slavery to build stadiums, it met the football community and larger news media with a resounding thud. Unfortunately, human rights violations don't interest anyone anymore, unless they are of political interest to someone (e.g. the butchering of Jamal Khashoggi). The UN is a dead paper tiger, with the US, China and Russia in the Human Rights Commission and the Security Council each protecting themselves and their respective allies from consequences. The US only care about wherever they see economic interests (Iraq!), the EU is too fractured and under the economic thumbs of Russia (gas) and China (cheap goods, destination for German cars), and China and Russia don't give any fuck about human rights. We live in a world of the strongest, not in a world based on the global rule of law. And I fear it might take another World War or an alien invasion for humanity to finally overcome that. The alternative, and this is where I fear the planet is heading, is China exporting its questionable ideas of authoritarianism across the world.
kingcharles 5y ago
My girlfriend is native Qatari. I can tell you that most young native Qataris are as saddened by their government's behaviour as those outside the country are. Until recently there was nothing to be done about it. What she is telling me, though, is that there are high hopes the World Cup will bring about changes to society, especially regarding gay rights, to accomodate the visitors, which will then stick after the end of the event. Qatar was finally forced to implement some beginnings of democracy this year, ahead of the WC, after having managed to successfully put them off for a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Qatari_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Qatari_general_election
johnyzee 5y ago
The outrage is hypocrisy. Oh, it's fine for all of our consumer goods to be built by de facto slaves, toiling under much worse conditions than these construction workers, because to protest that we would actually have to change our lifestyle, lest we look like abject hypocrites. Just install some more suicide nets at the Apple plant and don't worry about it.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  People are trying to change both... often the same people.
- pnt12 5y ago
  You're arguing at a strawman with a flavor of whataboutism - many people don't think that's OK, and different problems don't invalidate this one. Other than that: individual boycott doesn't work. For example, I don't buy Apple products but the company is doing more than fine.
amai 5y ago
2022 - Winter Olympics in China and Soccer World Cup in Qatar. They will be a huge successes like the Winter Olympics in Sotschi, Russia 2014.
silexia 5y ago
Why would anyone still watch a sport that supports evil like this?

338 points by eisa01 5y ago

Nah moral outrage is on the Winter Olympics 2022 right now. Hard to maintain concurrent moral outrages at the same time.

sharken 5y ago
Ain't that the truth. The World Cup is a bigger deal than the Winter Olympics, so we can't really do the right thing. More than 6.000 dead workers due to the World Cup, the event should be stopped to avoid more deaths in future events. But nothing will happen, it's the sad truth of it all.
- eunos 5y ago
  Nah I grew disillusioned with atrocity propaganda, consequently I'm glad that its potency starts diminishing.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    I was wondering what kind of person who would dismiss large scale human rights abuses as "atrocity propaganda", and holy shit I was not disappointed. You've got to have one of the edgiest profiles on this site!
FredPret 5y ago
Yeah too many slave labour-fueled projects going on to be upset with all of them

lordnacho 5y ago

Have to say as a football fan, it's a scandal that they're running the world cup in Qatar. A winter world cup pushes the schedules way off what's normal and traditional. That is of course not the only concern, there's also stories about dozens of people dying building these stadiums in the desert heat. There's also a heck of a lot of stories about how Qatar was able to get the world cup in the first place. It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption, which is a shame because they're supposed to be in charge of the world's favourite sport. Of course there's no accountability in any way, who even knows who their national FA rep is? I guess that's one of the perks of running a sport with that much history, people will still feel compelled to watch. One thing that's positive is that ordinary people are not ignorant about this situation. You'll find in every FB post about this there's a load of voices expressing what I've just expressed. So whatever the Qataris think they're buying with this massive outlay, they're not getting it. On the sporting side it appears they're making a decent effort of building a home grown team that isn't going to totally embarrass them, which is quite the challenge.

smallerfish 5y ago
> dozens Thousands in the overall construction boom. https://www.fastcompany.com/90607440/at-least-6500-workers-have-died-from-building-qatars-world-cup https://www.fastcompany.com/90607440/at-least-6500-workers-h...
- rapnie 5y ago
  Massacre United. It is utterly shameful and deeply saddening.
- djrockstar1 5y ago
  The number doesn't seem egregious relative to how many workers there are. The Josimar article says > In August, Amnesty released a report that documented that at least 15 000 migrant workers had died since Qatar was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010. So, 15000 deaths over 11 years, or 1,363 deaths per year. Worth noting that this number does not make a distinction between people working in Qatar for the World Cup or just anyone working in Qatar. Wikipedia says 2.3m expats as of 2017[1]. Putting the death rate at 0.59 per 1000 people per year (for 2017, the number of expats has been increasing since 2010, so the number would be higher for 2010, lower for 2021). This would put it at the very bottom of countries based on death rate[2]. (It's already at the very bottom for death rate, but here we're only looking at expats.) TL;DR The number quoted has very little to do with the number of people working on the 2022 World Cup, and isn't really alarming. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_mortality_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_mortality...
  - dash2 5y ago
    Here's the original report so people can check for themselves: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/ * The death numbers are as reported by Qatar's own statistics agency and Amnesty says there are significant problems with them. * Migrant workers are working age, not elderly, so comparing this to overall death rates is probably misleading. * "69% of deaths of workers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh between 2008 and 2019 were attributed to ‘natural causes’ or ‘cardiac arrest’, and contained no information about the underlying causes of death... experts consulted by Amnesty International have said that in a well-resourced health system, it should be possible to identify the cause of death in all but 1% of cases."

m4tthumphrey 5y ago

I still can't fathom how Qatar 22 is actually going ahead. The worst part is legends such as Beckham and co who are willingly endorsing it for $150m+.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
I'm sure we'd all endorse anything if someone gave us a multi-million-dollar cheque for posting a few tweets and making a few media appearances - and you can do it _guilt-free_ because you know that wherever or not you accept the bloodstained money, the event is still going to go ahead, so you might as well make-bank.
- m4tthumphrey 5y ago
  Naively perhaps, I'd like to believe that someone like Beckham who has historically always been the face of great causes and events (UNICEF, London 2012, etc) would show some balls and actively campaign AGAINST this shit show. But instead he has taken the "if you can't beat them without trying, get paid obscene amounts of money" route. I fear that this will become his legacy and right now, I think he's ok with that.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    > show some balls I see what you did there
  - rapnie 5y ago
    > I think he's ok with that. .. he and his new yacht are likely okay with that. https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/david-beckham-splashes-out-on-luxury-yacht/ar-AARWiA4 https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebr...
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    I don’t recall David Beckham ever making any particularly principled sacrifices though.
- 5y ago

auggierose 5y ago

National teams should just boycott this World Cup. I am certainly not watching it, although I love football.

m4tthumphrey 5y ago
Teams pulling out would most definitely make a difference. It does make you wonder why the players/managers do not get together and... strike.
vanilla-almond 5y ago
The popular YouTube football channel Fifo Football made a video on whether national teams might boycott the World Cup 2022: Will Countries Boycott The Qatar World Cup? https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KL9LExsPLI https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KL9LExsPLI (TL;DR: No)
sofixa 5y ago
Few national teams and players would dare to boycott it. National careers are short with few possibilities for success ( one of the advantages of a World Cup every two years would be that more teams and players could have success), and just playing for the national team, let alone at the biggest competition in sport there is, is a source of pride.
- lbriner 5y ago
  Exactly. Not only that but the chance of an entire team agreeing this is the best idea would split the team between the yays and nays. The only thing that would work would be for people not to buy tickets and not to watch the matches but sadly that is unlikely to happen. The idea that asking a government or FIFA to do anything is laughable, the world cup is far too political for most organisations to risk being blacklisted/cancelled/lose contracts/lose face whatever
alkonaut 5y ago
Indeed. If a few high profile teams boycotts it, then the rest would follow. Better yet, if Germany, Italy and a few others offered to host a tournament for the qualified teams (with FIFA blessing or not) maybe others would join? This is how the NHL should have treated the Olympic ice hockey tournament in China: rather than boycotting they should have simply played the games in Taiwan to make a point. Whether they would count as Olympic matches would make no difference. The kick in the groin to Chinese and Qatari bigwigs would be glorious. Millions in bribes wasted .

vanilla-almond 5y ago

"In August, Amnesty released a report that documented that at least 15 000 migrant workers had died since Qatar was awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010." If these figures are true, then no matter how 'successful' the World Cup 2022 turns out, it will always be tainted by these shameful figures.

djrockstar1 5y ago
Quoting the Amnesty article: > Official Qatari statistics show that over 15,021 non-Qataris – of all ages and occupations – died between 2010 and 2019 I think it's worth putting the number into context. There's 2,300,000 non-Qataris in Qatar. 1,670 deaths per year puts the mortality rate at 0.72 per year per 1000 people. That's 10 times lower than the global mortality rate as of 2020.
- kickling 5y ago
  If you look at the work related death rate among workers in the US the number is 0.035 per 1000 people. So if the deaths are work related, it is a huge number compared to the US at least. [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm]
  - djrockstar1 5y ago
    If we assume 100% of deaths over this 9 year period work workplace accidents, then yes, this number is alarming. However there's just no way that all of those deaths were work related. We can't know the true number, since there's a lack of trust towards the number provided by the Qatari Government. In the U.S. there were 2,854,838 deaths [1]. The report you linked claims 5,333 of those deaths were work-related. That means 0.18% of deaths in the US in 2019 were not work related. Now I concede that the U.S. has much better workplace safety guidelines, with OSHA and the like, compared to less developed nations. So that percentage would surely be much higher in Qatar, but how much higher? If we assume that 5% of deaths were work related in Qatar, then that 0.72 overall mortality rate becomes 0.036 per 1000 people, same as the US, with its much better workplace safety guidelines, while assuming a 29x greater percent of deaths being workplace related. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf

eisa01 5y ago

I'd encourage everyone to speak up to the sponsors of FIFA that seemingly condone the spurious arrest of these Norwegian journalists. Same with the former football athletes that promote these games The Chinese government is able to change the behavior of multinational companies, so why can't we ;) List of sponsors: Adidas, Coca-Cola, Wanda Group, Hyundai, Qatar Airways, Visa, Budweiser, Hisense, McDonalds, Vivo

grapescheesee 5y ago

Am I wrong?! 15,000 workers have died? How is a number like that acceptable? What if the event was Roman and I replaced workers with gladiators? Would the entertainment be more obviously a weight of blood? This type of wealth is a form of modern war. Albeit, the other side which follows successful, or non successful war. This is mostly paid for with oil profits.

djrockstar1 5y ago
15,000 construction workers working on the World Cup have not died. 15,021 non-Qataris have died. The number includes any expatriate in Qatar - teachers, managers, fast food servers, VPs - everyone. Even among construction workers, the vast majority are working on projects that have nothing to do with the World Cup. For context, something like 80% of the 2.6m people in Qatar are expatriates, and these deaths occurred over a 9 year period. You can do the math.
- grapescheesee 5y ago
  Thank you for clarifying.
  - hluska 5y ago
    Please read the Amnesty International report. This subject is way too big and too complex to trust anyone but actual experts.
- hluska 5y ago
  - djrockstar1 5y ago
    I'm literally just a Pakistani dude who's lived in Qatar all his life bored at work with nothing to do. Well, that or I'm a Qatari national working for the Qatari government as a social media agent, but doing programming on the side for some reason, who knows?

osivertsson 5y ago

For some background on Qatar see the Amnesty International report 2020/2021 on Qatar: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/qatar/report-qatar/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-af...

jsiepkes 5y ago

Does anyone know how many players have actually declined to play in Qatar because of this modern day slavery? Can't be that many because I haven't seen any news about it.

notsureaboutpg 5y ago
bellyfullofbac 5y ago
To be cynical about it, principles don't buy you Bentleys nor does it attract trophy wives. Not that I'm saying I'm superior, I also like money and the comfort it brings me, in the current system that rules the world. Sibling comment has been modded to death by talking about players coming from countries with slavery, that seems over the top, but another online comment I've read is that in the Middle East, slavery is right there, meanwhile in the West there is a bit of distance. Who makes your clothes (probably underpaid Bangladeshi, or nowadays, Ughyurs), who makes your electronics (probably Chinese factory workers in not-so-great conditions), or who mined the minerals needed for them?
- dfxm12 5y ago
  On the other hand, the players whose decision to boycott the games would have the intended effect of bringing some of the corruption to light and putting pressure on FIFA to not do something similar again almost certainly already have enough money to buy Bentleys and attract trophy wives. So, if a star player really feels a certain way about this, I'm not sure the money has as much sway over them as it would over someone else, like you or me, or some lesser known player (whose boycott would have much less effect).
jeroenhd 5y ago
I haven't heard anything like that. Seems like the world cup is just going to continue like it always does. That 400 million dollars of potential prize money, excluding all the extra ad revenue players might receive for wearing a particular brand of shoe or drinking a particular beverage, is enough to evaporate any morals. There's also the prestige factor, the dream of being crowned the best of the best. I've heard some stories of teams considering a boycot, but very few of those teams had any chance in getting through the qualification round. It's very easy to boycot an event you don't take part in. For the sake of sports, soccer teams have ignored the horrid treatment of the locals many times over. FIFA is corrupt beyond saving and the Olympic Committee isn't much different. The real game being played is that of the corrupt, taking money to ensure coca cola and friends can sell ads to enough people. We've seen massive changes in platform culture online when advertisers got scared of being associated with bad stuff, like with Elsagate on YouTube, so I think the only way to get anyone to care is to threaten the income of the parties involved. Treat any advertisement on Qatar 2022 as an endorsement of modern day slavery and be sure to let the web know how you feel. Maybe, just maybe, when the big companies start to pull out, the teams and players will suddenly find their morals again.

brianoconnor 5y ago

I don't care about football. But what can I suggest to friends who really want to see their team playing? What sort of protest is possible? Is there anything that hurts FIFA? What about the sponsors?

lpv 5y ago
You can suggest that they write a stern tweet or reddit comment, like everyone else who likes to pretend they're protesting so they can pat themselves on the back and then continue watching the sport.
dfxm12 5y ago
Most of that money comes from TV fees and sponsorships. In all honesty, whether your friends watch or not, at this point, it's probably not going to affect anything for 2022. FIFA has already secured the TV fees and they already got their sponsorship money. I mean, maybe you can suggest they not buy the official Adidas world cup ball, if they were even planning on buying it...

fatonR 5y ago

Although it won't happen, I wish some qualified teams would withdraw from the competition to take a stand against what is happening in Qatar.

Thlom 5y ago
Fans tried in Norway, but failed. Not that we managed to qualify anyway ...

arminiusreturns 5y ago

[dead]

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
Sigh. Yes Epstein is a vile scumbag, but he was also a rich asshole who liked networking, I don't think it's fair to associate everyone who met with him as a part of his rapey ventures. Opened your link, scrolled to the conclusions. Hah, reads like a Q-Anon writing...
- lostlogin 5y ago
  > I don't think it's fair to associate everyone who met with him as a part of his rapey ventures. But it’s also reasonable to expect a plausible explanation. The Prince Andrew scenario comes to mind, and a blanket pass should not be given.
ryanlol 5y ago
>The link between [redacted], the Israeli state intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Force is not a tenuous one >One of the directors of Carbyne is [redacted]. The chairman of the board of directors is Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime Minister of Israel She’s a director of a company with a former PM on the board, pretty sure this is exactly the kind of a link that normal sane people would consider “tenuous”.
dang 4y ago
We've redacted some names from this subthread since its more lurid allegations appear to be unsubstantiated. HN threads often show up high in search results for people's names, so we try to be reasonably accommodating of such requests.

chunkyguy 5y ago

Football or any sport up and beyond a certain level is more about entertainment than about the actual sport.

naskwo 5y ago

Could someone here do the math: how much CO2 is emitted by air travel to Qatar for football teams + entourage + fans vs. European countries hosting the world cup games (e.g. Italy, Benelux, Spain)?

fakedang 5y ago
How is that any relevant? Any international competition will have a significant aviation footprint - especially something like the Olympics which involves far more countries than the World cup. In fact, I'd reckon the aviation footprint will be lower because of Qatar's relatively central position in the old world, from where fans are more likely to travel to watch a live football game. What's more relevant here from an environmental standpoint is the cost of adding lifestyle amenities (water, energy, landscaping, construction, etc) on the ground for the million or so football fans who will descend upon a country not especially designed to handle such a high volume of traffic without committing some serious ecological cost.

dcoo 5y ago

It still seems wild to me that, after discovering most of the judges who voted for Qatar to host the World Cup were bribed, everything proceeded as planned. Sepp Blatter was objectively corrupt, and Infantino is no better.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago

I dont know what to think about migrant death rates. The rublings seem to be worrisome, but proof seems to be elusive. Then one is forced to objectively look at the facts, and things get murkier: - Migrants are willing to co tinue yo travel despite the negative press - Migrant home countries are never in the news lodging official protests or expressing serious concern. - In fact, home countries seem to do absolutely nothing to curb whatever alleged excesses could be happening. Maybe people are focused on the wrong problem. If death rates are not scandalous or even serious (outside of higher death rates consistent with industrial occupations deemed as hazardous) what seems to be unquestioned is Qatar's abuses in imprisonment of any person, migrant or not. I'd like to hear more about cases like this article. I've been to the last 5 world cups. I am seriously considering boycotting visiting because of articles like this one. Good journalistic work. Closing: Regarding someone's awful experience in school with Association Football abuse. Im sorry this happened to you. As a parent of several kids that constantly play "soccer" in every room of our house, i can tell you the sport brings immense joy to many, including little ones. As a parent, thank you for reminding me to stay alert about abuses at school masquerading as PE.

FirstLvR 5y ago
Migrants continue travelling because they have no other choice. Am from Latam and these stories can be heard everywhere, from people that keep moving between countries, looking for an opportunity
alkonaut 5y ago
> but proof seems to be elusive. Why is that? Is there no transparency and free press reporting on it? Then the numbers should be assumed to be much worse.

sys_64738 5y ago

Let’s hope that COVID causes this WC to be an attendance disaster for FIFA with empty stadiums the norm. Qatar getting the WC is bribery taken to the extreme. Let the lessons of this stop the tournament being manipulated for political and financial gains. And keep it in June when it’s meant to be.

zahma 5y ago

The tendency by FIFA and especially UEFA to prioritize money for its partners and for its officials above principles and sport has turned me away from organized football. I find it repugnant that when BBC and The Guardian (among others) reported back in 2013 on Qatar’s labor conditions in sweltering heat, the deaths, and what is essentially slavery to build stadiums, it was met by the football community and larger news media with a resounding thud. It wasn’t until the last few years that footballers who had nothing to lose started to speak their minds. It’s honestly disgusting to me to the point where I don’t know when I’ll ever want to watch the World Cup or Champion’s League again. I used to get excited by these events because the sport still seemed to be prioritized and people got genuinely excited by seeing talent rise to the level. I came of age hearing just how good Messi would become after his early appearance for Argentina in 2006 I think. His rise has witnessed the transition to players representing teams and entire brands. It hardly feels like sport but lifestyle, prestige, and entertainment, something Qatar is desperately trying to purchase as their oil money starts to dry up. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-24394971 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-24394971 Maybe there was earlier reporting on this but this was the best I could do on my phone.

mschuster91 5y ago
> I find it repugnant that when BBC and The Guardian (among others) reported back in 2013 on Qatar’s labor conditions in sweltering heat, the deaths, and essential slavery to build stadiums, it met the football community and larger news media with a resounding thud. Unfortunately, human rights violations don't interest anyone anymore, unless they are of political interest to someone (e.g. the butchering of Jamal Khashoggi). The UN is a dead paper tiger, with the US, China and Russia in the Human Rights Commission and the Security Council each protecting themselves and their respective allies from consequences. The US only care about wherever they see economic interests (Iraq!), the EU is too fractured and under the economic thumbs of Russia (gas) and China (cheap goods, destination for German cars), and China and Russia don't give any fuck about human rights. We live in a world of the strongest, not in a world based on the global rule of law. And I fear it might take another World War or an alien invasion for humanity to finally overcome that. The alternative, and this is where I fear the planet is heading, is China exporting its questionable ideas of authoritarianism across the world.

kingcharles 5y ago

My girlfriend is native Qatari. I can tell you that most young native Qataris are as saddened by their government's behaviour as those outside the country are. Until recently there was nothing to be done about it. What she is telling me, though, is that there are high hopes the World Cup will bring about changes to society, especially regarding gay rights, to accomodate the visitors, which will then stick after the end of the event. Qatar was finally forced to implement some beginnings of democracy this year, ahead of the WC, after having managed to successfully put them off for a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Qatari_general_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Qatari_general_election

johnyzee 5y ago

The outrage is hypocrisy. Oh, it's fine for all of our consumer goods to be built by de facto slaves, toiling under much worse conditions than these construction workers, because to protest that we would actually have to change our lifestyle, lest we look like abject hypocrites. Just install some more suicide nets at the Apple plant and don't worry about it.

rtkwe 5y ago
People are trying to change both... often the same people.
pnt12 5y ago
You're arguing at a strawman with a flavor of whataboutism - many people don't think that's OK, and different problems don't invalidate this one. Other than that: individual boycott doesn't work. For example, I don't buy Apple products but the company is doing more than fine.

amai 5y ago

2022 - Winter Olympics in China and Soccer World Cup in Qatar. They will be a huge successes like the Winter Olympics in Sotschi, Russia 2014.

silexia 5y ago

Why would anyone still watch a sport that supports evil like this?