Mushtak Parker
CAPE TOWN - The football gods were in no mood for jesting! On April Fool’s Day, the 2022 Fifa World Cup draw in Doha, the capital of the host nation Qatar, was subdued despite the desert bling and diversity of the proceedings, hosted by ex-England star Jermaine Jenas.
The fireworks were set off the previous night in a public spat between Hassan Al-Thawadi, the secretary-general of the Orwellian-sounding Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, and Lise Klaveness, the president of the Norwegian Football Federation, over workers’ rights, compensation and Fifa’s future as a socio-football role model. For an absolute monarchy, the Norwegian’s call on Fifa to promote “the core interests of football – human rights, equality and democracy”, was an “insult” too far.
The draw was bereft of the excitement of a “Group of Death”. The opening game could have been a potential embarrassment for both Qatar and Fifa’s ineffectual Swiss/Italian president Gianni Infantino and Senegalese secretary general Fatma Samoura.
The Dutch and Danes were strongly against Qatar hosting the quadrennial football fest, and have been the most vocal critics of their treatment of migrant workers and denial of various rights, especially those of LGBT communities.
Saudi Arabia was initially drawn in Group B seeded by England – the same group with its arch-enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran – both of whom are fighting a brutal proxy war in Yemen.
Since they are from the same regional confederation they cannot be in the same group, which meant the inclusion of the Saudis in Group C.
But once again the gods are having the last laugh! Iran has been drawn in Group B with its adversary, the US, in what promises to be an emotive clash on the pitch.
Politics, economics and sports are inextricably intertwined. Qatar ’22 is the most controversial in World Cup history. It was seriously flawed from the start – the corrupt bidding process in 2010 that allowed Qatar to win the right to hold the event, and its treatment of migrant workers who are building the stadiums.
Of the 22 Executive Committee members who voted in favour of the Qatar bid, 11 have been sanctioned – either suspended (including Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini), fined, indicted, banned for life or are under investigation. Corruption is part of the DNA of a very opaque World Cup bidding process.
Qatar reportedly spent about $200 million in its bid, albeit the true amount, especially in private payments, will never be revealed.
If Samoura is serious about transparency and reform, then she should start with the bidding process and force a declaration of interests, investment and impact assessment of host countries based on global best practice, fiduciary and financial accountability of each phase of the process, and disclosure of every penny paid to lobbyists.
That Africa carried the day in its support for Doha’s bid is not in question. Ex-Nigerian star, Efan Ekoku, as a guest on BBC’s coverage of the draw, commended Qatar hosting the tournament and added that the emirate was unfairly getting bad press especially from the western media.
As if the 50 deaths of migrant workers on construction sites, more than 500 others seriously injured, and another 37 600 suffering from mild to moderate injuries, all last year alone in Qatar, according to the International Labout Organisation, did not matter.
Ekoku’s rationale is that Qatar’s staging the World Cup is a triumph for emerging countries and a riposte to the Anglo-Saxon domination of the administration of football.
Corruption and chauvinism in sports are universal phenomena. The history of football is ridden with inequality, entitlement, moral contradiction and a lack of ethical oversight.
Qatar has made some progress over the past decade. Whether this is genuine, mere sports washing, or as the Dutch manager Louis van Gaal suggested, all about “money” and “commercial interests”, only time will tell.
Parker is an economist and writer based in London
Cape Times