11 ms·

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 tra

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."
    - xvf22 5y ago
      You wonder how many electrocutions are put down as 'cardiac arrest'. I mean yes, but not exactly natural.
      - newaccount74 5y ago
        Heat stroke and dehydration also leads to cardiac arrest.
  - tda 5y ago
    Of course you can't compare general mortality to mortality of people in the prime years of their life. I have personally seen the circumstances in which Indian men work and live in the Middle East and it is not pretty. Whatever comes out/is reported officially, the truth is probably a lot worse
    - djrockstar1 5y ago
      I haven't been able to find death rate statistics for people aged 18-30, so I can't really compare the numbers with strictly facts. There is an article from the BBC from 2015 that claims that the number is in line with what would be expected from that age group: > The point officials are making is that there are about half a million Indian workers in Qatar, and about 250 deaths per year - and this, in their view, is not a cause for concern. In fact, Indian government data suggests that back home in India you would expect a far higher proportion to die each year - not 250, but 1,000 in any group of 500,000 25-30-year-old men. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33019838 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33019838
kybernetyk 5y ago
>FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption Understatement of the year
- turminal 5y ago
  This looks like it's slowly improving though.
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    Are you serious? Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money. Not to mention that Infantino and two Swiss judicial officials are under active investigation in a corruption scandal [1]. FIFA is a bunch of corrupt crooks, and while some individuals have been shown the door when the amount of corruption became too large, the institution itself has done nothing to prevent corruption. [1]: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-79942.html https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmittei...
    - pndy 5y ago
      > a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money That was reported here with "Everyone will profit from this (decision)" Infantino quote in some headlines. It's like FIFA is run by the Ferengi... /s
    - ramblerman 5y ago
      > Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money. While I also don’t love that idea there is a BIG difference between making more money for the organization FIFA and profiting from it vs direct corruption. Ie taking bribes from Qatar
      - lordnacho 5y ago
        They are intimately connected, aren't they? Twice as many WCs, twice as many chances to sell your vote. FIFA the org doesn't need more money, any extra they get will get pocketed with intra-org admin, where the jobs are also doled out as favours.
fnord123 5y ago
> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption Blatter and Platini are both facing a trial right now: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59133079 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59133079 In 2019, Platini was detained over the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/18/michel-platini-arrested-over-award-of-2022-world-cup-to-qatar https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/18/michel-plat... > Michel Platini, the banned former Uefa president and France football legend, has been detained in connection with a criminal investigation into alleged corruption relating to Fifa’s decision to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, French justice sources have confirmed.
- a4isms 5y ago
  Organized sports at the professional and international level have been in the business of sportwashing practically since their inception. Do you sell tobacco that causes your users to die a painful and lingering death from cancer? No problem, sponsor one of the most famous vehicles in F1 history. Are you leading a fascist state that will go on to murder six million Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and other "undesirables," not to mention plunging the world into war? No problem, host the Olympics, they'll gladly let you use it as a propaganda exercise. But of course, if someone boycotts the Olympics, they are being "political." If someone raises their fist in protest, they are "besmirching the Olympics." if you aren't paying for it, you aren't allowed to exploit it. What has changed since 1976 and 1936, respectively? Nothing.
  - silexia 5y ago
    Don't forget the NBA and LeBron James personal support for dictator JinPing's destruction of the freedom of Hong Kong and the genocide of the Uighurs.
beebmam 5y ago
Stuff like this makes me proud to be an American, where soccer is totally ignored; instead we thoroughly enjoy successful sports where virtually everyone cheats, like baseball
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  Isn't stadium building in the US wrapped in scandals since the taxpayers foot the bill for which private enterprises profit, while american football and basketball the source of several scandals where college athletes are basically unpaid slaves, exploited by advertising and entertainment corporations? I remember both John Oliver and South Park covered these topics. Not trying to switch topics or go whataboutism but I'm genuinely concerned about the massive corruption and exploitation around the modern sports industry that's somehow become acceptable nowadays, with FIFA being the richest and most corrupt non profit in the world. This current situation reminds me of the "bread and games" popularity near the fall of the Roman empire.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - thom 5y ago
    There's a great documentary on this subject by Michael Bertin: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/throwabillion https://vimeo.com/ondemand/throwabillion
  - eru 5y ago
    Though at least in Rome the politicians paid for the games themselves. (Of course, where they got that wealth is another question.)
  - jaywalk 5y ago
    I'm not sure "scandal" is the correct word for stadium funding. It's not like any of it is a secret, it's all done out in the open. People just don't pay attention. And the tide does appear to be turning on that, since the newest and by far most expensive NFL stadium (SoFi Stadium in LA) was privately funded.
daviddumenil 5y ago
> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption John Oliver has made a great summary of FIFA's darker side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I
baxtr 5y ago
Qatar has also very close ties to some football clubs, e.g. FC Bayern. Fans start taking notice though. Just a couple of weeks ago, Bayern Munich's annual general meeting ended with the club's directors being yelled at for refusing to discuss their sponsorship agreement with Qatar. https://nationworldnews.com/bayern-munichs-agm-ends-in-uproar-over-qatar-sponsorship-ap-news/ https://nationworldnews.com/bayern-munichs-agm-ends-in-uproa...
- input_sh 5y ago
  Worth noting that German clubs are somewhat unique because they're supposed to be owned by the fans[0], not corporations (with some exceptions). Fans pay money for the membership to have some influence on its operation and vote on some issues. As one can see from your link, it's definitely less than perfect in practice, but that's why the fans are supposed to have any say in deals like this instead of the club being able to do whatever they want to like in most other countries. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50%2B1_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50%2B1_rule
  - biztos 5y ago
    I listened to a news podcast that covered the meeting[0] and it was very interesting to hear the fans chanting "We are Bayern, You are not!" Turns out the club bylaws put sponsorship decisions entirely in the hands of the leadership, and this was affirmed in court, so there's no way for the fans to cancel the Qatar deal without convincing the very people who made the deal. [0]: in German: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/26-11-21-macht-b-1-1-529-alles-noch-viel-schlimmer-dlf-46c1ab27-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/26-11-21-macht-b-1-1-529-alle...
    - tm-guimaraes 5y ago
      Doesn't the leadership have terms and need to be reelected? At least that's what happens with clubs here. As an associate, you can vote on the next president.
  - AlgorithmicTime 5y ago
chrisseaton 5y ago
> A winter world cup The World Cup is played in winter every year if you live below the equator.
- afavour 5y ago
  The problem isn’t the season itself, it’s the disruption to domestic league schedules.
  - midasuni 5y ago
    Brazil’s season runs May to December
    - darrenf 5y ago
      And Colombia's league basically runs all year (Jan/Feb to Dec). MLS in the USA runs March-Oct.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - lentil_soup 5y ago
    That's a very europe centric comment. As if the only leagues that matter are theirs, the rest of the world will have to adjust.
    - afavour 5y ago
      I’m in the US, so… The point is that the World Cup has previously taken place at a consistent time of year, every time. If they made this change as part of a plan to distribute league disruption globally then we’d talk about it as such, but they made this change as part of a corrupt voting system that led to a bad decision with a load of fallout they’re still trying to work out.
    - parthdesai 5y ago
HamburgerEmoji 5y ago
hardlianotion 5y ago
Yes. As a football fan, I have decided to be doing something else entirely for the duration of the World Cup. I think the underclass that has suffered while building the infrastructure deserve some form of recognition.
andrepd 5y ago
> 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. What a paragraph. The death toll is at least in the many thousands, perhaps even >10,000.
- eru 5y ago
  Sources? I found eg https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/r... which tries to count all deaths, not just what can be attributed to the football stadiums. (It's a high death toll in any case. But we should still stick to the facts.)
  - csomar 5y ago
    It's not a high death toll (they have 1.5million workers of these nationalities). There is no transparent due-process for the identification of the death cause or the investigation of the working conditions. So these numbers don't really translate to much...
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    I said dozens because it seems credible, I didn't look anything up. It's somewhat common for construction workers to die even in the modern world, but my shock is more that it seems worse than most projects (Was it Guardian who had the story about people getting so tired they fell asleep and fell off the stadium roof?), yet most projects are for genuinely useful things like bridges and dams, not entertainment.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > I said dozens because it seems credible, I didn't look anything up. So you literally just made up a statistic out of nothing and posted it here? Why do you think that’s ok?
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Its not as bad as Argentina 1976. And people are not ignorant. They never are. But the show must go on.
the_af 5y ago
> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption That must be the understatement of the century!
j3th9n 5y ago
When there's big money to be made there is corruption, take a look at for example the pharmaceutical industry.
unnouinceput 5y ago
Quote: "It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption" This is THE understatement of the year, if such a race would be held your comment would win by a mile. Allow me to make the point more clear. If a race would be held for the overstatement of the year, the comment "FIFA's last years of its over a century lifespan was the freest of corruption" would win by a mile.
AndrewStephens 5y ago
> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption Is there a Nobel Prize for Understatement? I'll like to make a nomination.
Shadonototra 5y ago
yeah, the F1 can do what ever they want, but not football? the hypocrisy of the west when it comes to money is what will cause it to become extinct within the next century.. too much corruption at every level also too much politics, what brits are trying to achieve here? that reminds me of the attempts to kill the UEFA Champions League with what ever the US had cooked

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."
  - xvf22 5y ago
    You wonder how many electrocutions are put down as 'cardiac arrest'. I mean yes, but not exactly natural.
    - newaccount74 5y ago
      Heat stroke and dehydration also leads to cardiac arrest.
- tda 5y ago
  Of course you can't compare general mortality to mortality of people in the prime years of their life. I have personally seen the circumstances in which Indian men work and live in the Middle East and it is not pretty. Whatever comes out/is reported officially, the truth is probably a lot worse
  - djrockstar1 5y ago
    I haven't been able to find death rate statistics for people aged 18-30, so I can't really compare the numbers with strictly facts. There is an article from the BBC from 2015 that claims that the number is in line with what would be expected from that age group: > The point officials are making is that there are about half a million Indian workers in Qatar, and about 250 deaths per year - and this, in their view, is not a cause for concern. In fact, Indian government data suggests that back home in India you would expect a far higher proportion to die each year - not 250, but 1,000 in any group of 500,000 25-30-year-old men. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33019838 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33019838

kybernetyk 5y ago

>FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption Understatement of the year

turminal 5y ago
This looks like it's slowly improving though.
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Are you serious? Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money. Not to mention that Infantino and two Swiss judicial officials are under active investigation in a corruption scandal [1]. FIFA is a bunch of corrupt crooks, and while some individuals have been shown the door when the amount of corruption became too large, the institution itself has done nothing to prevent corruption. [1]: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen.msg-id-79942.html https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medienmittei...
  - pndy 5y ago
    > a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money That was reported here with "Everyone will profit from this (decision)" Infantino quote in some headlines. It's like FIFA is run by the Ferengi... /s
  - ramblerman 5y ago
    > Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money. While I also don’t love that idea there is a BIG difference between making more money for the organization FIFA and profiting from it vs direct corruption. Ie taking bribes from Qatar
    - lordnacho 5y ago
      They are intimately connected, aren't they? Twice as many WCs, twice as many chances to sell your vote. FIFA the org doesn't need more money, any extra they get will get pocketed with intra-org admin, where the jobs are also doled out as favours.

fnord123 5y ago

> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption Blatter and Platini are both facing a trial right now: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59133079 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59133079 In 2019, Platini was detained over the awarding of the World Cup to Qatar: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/18/michel-platini-arrested-over-award-of-2022-world-cup-to-qatar https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/18/michel-plat... > Michel Platini, the banned former Uefa president and France football legend, has been detained in connection with a criminal investigation into alleged corruption relating to Fifa’s decision to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, French justice sources have confirmed.

a4isms 5y ago
Organized sports at the professional and international level have been in the business of sportwashing practically since their inception. Do you sell tobacco that causes your users to die a painful and lingering death from cancer? No problem, sponsor one of the most famous vehicles in F1 history. Are you leading a fascist state that will go on to murder six million Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and other "undesirables," not to mention plunging the world into war? No problem, host the Olympics, they'll gladly let you use it as a propaganda exercise. But of course, if someone boycotts the Olympics, they are being "political." If someone raises their fist in protest, they are "besmirching the Olympics." if you aren't paying for it, you aren't allowed to exploit it. What has changed since 1976 and 1936, respectively? Nothing.
- silexia 5y ago
  Don't forget the NBA and LeBron James personal support for dictator JinPing's destruction of the freedom of Hong Kong and the genocide of the Uighurs.

beebmam 5y ago

Stuff like this makes me proud to be an American, where soccer is totally ignored; instead we thoroughly enjoy successful sports where virtually everyone cheats, like baseball

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
Isn't stadium building in the US wrapped in scandals since the taxpayers foot the bill for which private enterprises profit, while american football and basketball the source of several scandals where college athletes are basically unpaid slaves, exploited by advertising and entertainment corporations? I remember both John Oliver and South Park covered these topics. Not trying to switch topics or go whataboutism but I'm genuinely concerned about the massive corruption and exploitation around the modern sports industry that's somehow become acceptable nowadays, with FIFA being the richest and most corrupt non profit in the world. This current situation reminds me of the "bread and games" popularity near the fall of the Roman empire.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thom 5y ago
  There's a great documentary on this subject by Michael Bertin: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/throwabillion https://vimeo.com/ondemand/throwabillion
- eru 5y ago
  Though at least in Rome the politicians paid for the games themselves. (Of course, where they got that wealth is another question.)
- jaywalk 5y ago
  I'm not sure "scandal" is the correct word for stadium funding. It's not like any of it is a secret, it's all done out in the open. People just don't pay attention. And the tide does appear to be turning on that, since the newest and by far most expensive NFL stadium (SoFi Stadium in LA) was privately funded.

daviddumenil 5y ago

> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption John Oliver has made a great summary of FIFA's darker side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I

baxtr 5y ago

Qatar has also very close ties to some football clubs, e.g. FC Bayern. Fans start taking notice though. Just a couple of weeks ago, Bayern Munich's annual general meeting ended with the club's directors being yelled at for refusing to discuss their sponsorship agreement with Qatar. https://nationworldnews.com/bayern-munichs-agm-ends-in-uproar-over-qatar-sponsorship-ap-news/ https://nationworldnews.com/bayern-munichs-agm-ends-in-uproa...

input_sh 5y ago
Worth noting that German clubs are somewhat unique because they're supposed to be owned by the fans[0], not corporations (with some exceptions). Fans pay money for the membership to have some influence on its operation and vote on some issues. As one can see from your link, it's definitely less than perfect in practice, but that's why the fans are supposed to have any say in deals like this instead of the club being able to do whatever they want to like in most other countries. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50%2B1_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50%2B1_rule
- biztos 5y ago
  I listened to a news podcast that covered the meeting[0] and it was very interesting to hear the fans chanting "We are Bayern, You are not!" Turns out the club bylaws put sponsorship decisions entirely in the hands of the leadership, and this was affirmed in court, so there's no way for the fans to cancel the Qatar deal without convincing the very people who made the deal. [0]: in German: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/26-11-21-macht-b-1-1-529-alles-noch-viel-schlimmer-dlf-46c1ab27-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/26-11-21-macht-b-1-1-529-alle...
  - tm-guimaraes 5y ago
    Doesn't the leadership have terms and need to be reelected? At least that's what happens with clubs here. As an associate, you can vote on the next president.
- AlgorithmicTime 5y ago

chrisseaton 5y ago

> A winter world cup The World Cup is played in winter every year if you live below the equator.

afavour 5y ago
The problem isn’t the season itself, it’s the disruption to domestic league schedules.
- midasuni 5y ago
  Brazil’s season runs May to December
  - darrenf 5y ago
    And Colombia's league basically runs all year (Jan/Feb to Dec). MLS in the USA runs March-Oct.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- lentil_soup 5y ago
  That's a very europe centric comment. As if the only leagues that matter are theirs, the rest of the world will have to adjust.
  - afavour 5y ago
    I’m in the US, so… The point is that the World Cup has previously taken place at a consistent time of year, every time. If they made this change as part of a plan to distribute league disruption globally then we’d talk about it as such, but they made this change as part of a corrupt voting system that led to a bad decision with a load of fallout they’re still trying to work out.
  - parthdesai 5y ago

HamburgerEmoji 5y ago

hardlianotion 5y ago

Yes. As a football fan, I have decided to be doing something else entirely for the duration of the World Cup. I think the underclass that has suffered while building the infrastructure deserve some form of recognition.

andrepd 5y ago

> 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. What a paragraph. The death toll is at least in the many thousands, perhaps even >10,000.

eru 5y ago
Sources? I found eg https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/revealed-migrant-worker-deaths-qatar-fifa-world-cup-2022 https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/23/r... which tries to count all deaths, not just what can be attributed to the football stadiums. (It's a high death toll in any case. But we should still stick to the facts.)
- csomar 5y ago
  It's not a high death toll (they have 1.5million workers of these nationalities). There is no transparent due-process for the identification of the death cause or the investigation of the working conditions. So these numbers don't really translate to much...
- lordnacho 5y ago
  I said dozens because it seems credible, I didn't look anything up. It's somewhat common for construction workers to die even in the modern world, but my shock is more that it seems worse than most projects (Was it Guardian who had the story about people getting so tired they fell asleep and fell off the stadium roof?), yet most projects are for genuinely useful things like bridges and dams, not entertainment.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > I said dozens because it seems credible, I didn't look anything up. So you literally just made up a statistic out of nothing and posted it here? Why do you think that’s ok?

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Its not as bad as Argentina 1976. And people are not ignorant. They never are. But the show must go on.

the_af 5y ago

> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption That must be the understatement of the century!

j3th9n 5y ago

When there's big money to be made there is corruption, take a look at for example the pharmaceutical industry.

unnouinceput 5y ago

Quote: "It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption" This is THE understatement of the year, if such a race would be held your comment would win by a mile. Allow me to make the point more clear. If a race would be held for the overstatement of the year, the comment "FIFA's last years of its over a century lifespan was the freest of corruption" would win by a mile.

AndrewStephens 5y ago

> It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption Is there a Nobel Prize for Understatement? I'll like to make a nomination.

Shadonototra 5y ago

yeah, the F1 can do what ever they want, but not football? the hypocrisy of the west when it comes to money is what will cause it to become extinct within the next century.. too much corruption at every level also too much politics, what brits are trying to achieve here? that reminds me of the attempts to kill the UEFA Champions League with what ever the US had cooked