Qatar: FIFA and Infantino must tackle human rights issues

FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s letter to all 32 World Cup nations urges ‘focus on football’

Football’s world body still hasn’t supported remediation programme for migrant workers

‘Hundreds of thousands of workers have faced abuses to make this tournament possible’ - Steve Cockburn 

Responding to FIFA President Gianni Infantino sending a letter to all 32 nations competing at the 2022 World Cup urging them to “focus on the football” and to set aside human rights concerns, Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Justice, said:

“If Gianni Infantino wants the world to ‘focus on the football’ there is a simple solution: FIFA could finally start tackling the serious human rights issues rather than brushing them under the carpet. 

“A first step would be publicly committing to the establishment of a fund to compensate migrant workers before the tournament kicks off, and ensuring that LGBT people do not face discrimination or harassment. It is astonishing they still have not done so.  

   

“Gianni Infantino is right to say that ‘football does not exist in a vacuum’.

“Hundreds of thousands of workers have faced abuses to make this tournament possible and their rights cannot be forgotten or dismissed. They deserve justice and compensation, not empty words, and time is running out.”     

Unfinished business of labour reforms

In May, Amnesty and a coalition of organisations launched a campaign calling on Qatar and FIFA to establish a comprehensive remediation programme to compensate migrant workers who have suffered abuses in the preparation and delivery of the Qatar World Cup. Since then the call has garnered the support of many FAs and World Cup sponsors, and FIFA’s senior leadership have acknowledged the importance of compensation, though the footballing body itself is yet to publicly commit to supporting the remediation programme.  

Since 2017, the Qatari authorities have put in place measures to protect workers from wage theft and enhance access to justice, but these do not cover all workers or address abuses in the years before the systems were established. Crucially, significant implementation and enforcement gaps remain. For example, workers who have already left Qatar cannot access labour committees or a fund established to pay them when their employers fail to do so. 

Last month, Amnesty published a major report - Unfinished Business - showing that abuses against migrant workers remain rife in Qatar, with thousands of workers across all projects still facing issues such as delayed or unpaid wages, denial of rest days, unsafe working conditions, barriers to changing jobs and limited access to justice, while the deaths of thousands of workers remain uninvestigated.