The World Cup in Qatar is just around the corner and the maneuvers to clean up the country's image have not been long in coming. FIFA wants to compensate migrant workers who suffered accidents at work during World Cup construction projects, mainly in soccer stadiums.
This was confirmed on Thursday by FIFA Deputy Secretary General Alisdair Bell, who assured that this World Cup will be "the first major sporting event that leaves a lasting positive legacy in terms of human and labor rights."
He considered that the World Cup has been the catalyst for "real and tangible progress that has affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of people" and appealed for it to continue after the competition.
She also recognized the advances in labor matters Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian Football Federation, one of the most critical of Qatar, who pointed out that after the "unacceptable" attribution of the World Cup to the emirate "steps have been taken in the right direction".
However, he pointed out that the deaths of workers have not been transparently investigated -according to The Guardian newspaper, more than 6,500 people have died in the stadium works- and expressed his concern about the safety of homosexuals during the competition in a country that does not respect the rights of this group.
The deputy secretary general of the Council of Europe, Bjorn Berge, acknowledged on Thursday that Qatar has made "important progress in terms of labor rights", but not enough, for which he considered that "the situation of workers continues to be worrying". "Compliance with international standards must be a prerequisite and not an objective to be achieved" to be a candidate for an event like the World Cup, Berne considered during a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe dedicated to the situation of workers who they have built the stadiums and infrastructure for the next World Cup.
Amnesty International pointed out in a report that FIFA should respond to the affected workers and the families of the victims with a similar amount (about 450 million euros) to the money that it will pay to the 32 participating teams. Also some of the main sponsors of the World Cup event asked to compensate the exploited workers.
Qatar has established a worker support fund that, since 2020, has paid $164 million in compensation to more than 36,000 workers from 17 different countries, Human Rights Watch said in August, citing Qatari government data. Qatari authorities and World Cup organizers were also praised in Strasbourg for passing labor law reforms, including a minimum wage. "It's not just silly, it's real and it's delivering some tangible benefits that have actually improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people," Bell said.
"The risk," he acknowledged, "is that once the attention fades after the World Cup, it's really important that these changes remain and develop and hopefully even spread further in the Middle East."
