The comment by FIFA president for participants to “stick to football” has angered many, including the Amnesty International which secretary general has made an urgent plea to the world football governing body before the World Cup, to commit to a compensation package for migrant workers who suffered abuses in Qatar.
Agnès Callamard urged the world football governing body to issue a “cast-iron commitment” that “abused workers will be compensated and that programmes to prevent further abuses are funded”, adding that such a package would go “a long way towards helping victims and their families rebuild their lives”.
She also fiercely criticised Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s request to World Cup teams that they should “focus on the football” rather than discussing human rights issues in Qatar. “Infantino’s letter is a crass attempt at shirking Fifa’s culpability,” Callamard said.
In the letter, sent last month, Infantino had suggested critics were “handing out moral lessons to the rest of the world” and said nations should “not allow football to be dragged into every ideological or political battle that exists”.
Rather than calming criticism of Qatar, the letter angered human rights groups and football leaders, with countries including England and Wales saying they would continue campaigning on off-pitch issues. “Human rights are universal and they apply everywhere,” they said in a joint statement with eight other European football associations.
It also highlighted the cases of workers harmed in Qatar, including a Nepali citizen, Tul Bahadur Gharti, who is reported to have died in his sleep in November 2020 after working more than 10 hours in extreme heat on a construction site.
In an op-ed for international media on Friday, Callamard wrote: “Amid this growing clamour, the most crucial voice of all has remained conspicuously silent: Gianni Infantino.
“Despite private and public assurances from Fifa that they are ‘considering the proposal’, Infantino, a few platitudes aside, has consistently dodged the topic. To date, he has provided no response to our joint letter.”
She added that “given the well-documented history of labour-rights abuse in Qatar”, Fifa “knew – or should have known – the obvious risks to workers when it awarded Qatar the tournament.
“A pledge from Infantino to provide compensation would provide a tangible demonstration that Fifa is truly serious about its commitment to respect human rights,” she said.
In a statement to AFP last month, Qatar’s labour minister, Ali bin Samikh Al-Marri, said the Gulf state was already handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages, and described critics as “racist”. He added that the ministry’s “door is open”, saying that “if there is a person entitled to compensation who has not received it, they should come forward and we will help them”.
In response to the statement, Amnesty International, which is part of a campaign called #PayUpFIFA, said that while money paid out already was “undoubtedly important”, Qatar must expand its existing compensation funds or establish a new one.
It is calling for Fifa to pay $440m towards reparations – matching the prize money it will pay during the World Cup.
On Saturday, Fifa said it “remained in positive continuing dialogue” with labour organisations and the Qatari authorities over “initiatives that will benefit migrant workers in Qatar long after the final game of the World Cup”.It said there had been a “great response” to Infantino’s letter calling for teams to “focus on the football”, with various teams backing it.
The Guardian
