Photograph: Harold Cunningham/Fifa/AFP/Getty Images
The president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, has argued to the Council of Europe assembly that his plans to host a World Cup every two years (rather than the current every four years), could stop African migrants from dying in the Mediterranean Sea on route to Europe.
He suggested that by increasing the frequency of World Cups as part of his ‘Future of Football’ plan, it could “give hope to Africans so that they don’t need to cross the Mediterranean in order to find maybe a better life but, more probably, death in the sea.”
Let us be abundantly clear: Gianni Infantino and FIFA are politicizing a migrant crisis while simultaneously profiting from it. If Gianni Infantino and FIFA actually cared about supporting migrants, they could have started by supporting the thousands of migrant workers building the stadiums for FIFA World Cup 2022, who have been subjected to egregious human rights violations for over a decade.
Over 6750 migrant construction workers have died since Qatar was awarded the right to host the World Cup. Workers in Qatar suffer brutal temperatures and an exploitative labor system that makes it nearly impossible for them to leave their jobs or leave the country without their employer’s permission. While athletes and spectators will get to enjoy air-conditioned outdoor stadiums this November, thousands of migrant workers will have suffered heat stress in 40°C+ temperatures to build them.
Amnesty International report featuring LIN’s David Wegman:
“Dying for Sport”, a publication by LIN and the Nepalese Development Society on the situation facing workers in Qatar in BMJ’s Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
The situation is so critical that doctors in Nepal are now seeing previously healthy migrant Nepalese workers return home from Qatar with chronic kidney disease, with limited options for treatment or transplantation.
Exploiting a migrant crisis for profit is undeniably pathetic; doing so while exploiting migrant workers yourself is venal.
