The demands follow one another in Qatar

Since Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup more than ten years ago, the World Cup has been embroiled in numerous controversies.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
22 November 2022 Tuesday 09:38
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The demands follow one another in Qatar

Since Qatar was chosen to host the 2022 World Cup more than ten years ago, the World Cup has been embroiled in numerous controversies. The first of these was when, after the election, FIFA opened an investigation due to the information that pointed to a possible purchase of votes. The Arab country needed four votes to win the candidacy and beat the United States in the final.

However, in recent weeks the biggest controversies have arisen around the country's internal policies, restrictive of individual liberties, labor rights and respect for minorities. The world has harshly criticized the situation of women and the LGTBI collective, in addition to the 6,751 workers who died in the construction of infrastructure for the World Cup, according to a study prepared by The Guardian based on government sources.

Faced with this situation, the captain of the English team, Harry Kane, announced that he would wear a multicolored bracelet with the slogan "OneLove" in favor of the rights of the LGTBI collective. This initiative was joined by the captains of nine other teams, who accepted possible sanctions from FIFA. However, the organization went further and threatened the teams with showing the captain a yellow card if he wore this armband. Then the teams backed down and the claim fell on deaf ears.

The answers to this decision were not long in coming. The German Claudia Neumann and the English Alex Scott —former Arsenal player— decided to wear a multicolored bracelet in the broadcasts of the German and English public television, the ZDF and the BBC respectively. With this action, both women decided to show their rejection of FIFA's decision and support the LGTBI collective.

But this has only been one of the numerous protests that have taken place in the first days of the competition. On November 21, in the match between England and Iran and in which the English won 6 goals to 2, the players of the Middle East team decided not to sing their country's anthem as a criticism of the death of Mahsa Amini. British footballers, for their part, took a knee against racism. Also, at the same match, several Iranian fans displayed banners with the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom".

After only three days of competition, the demands do not stop in Qatar, and everything seems to indicate that the protests will continue in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the world union of soccer players, FIFPRO, expressed its disagreement with FIFA's decision to penalize players who wore the multicolored armband and defended that "soccer players must have the right to express their support for human rights inside and outside of the field of play".