Football — or soccer, if that’s how you choose to roll — is the world’s most popular sport. And the FIFA World Cup, held every four years, is the biggest celebration of said sport. 32 countries, who have played qualifier after qualifier to be there for the main event, face off for the world to see. Nothing quite matches the passion of a football World Cup for people all over the world.

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At the heart of that passion are the fans. They flock from every corner of the world to see their beloved national teams play for the pride of their country. The host nation rallies its people into support. Millions of people roar as one. It is the home country’s team and its fans that define each World Cup.

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The way Neymar tore up defences and the emotion displayed by Brazilian fans after the 7–1 trashing at the hands of Germany in the semi-finals were defining moments of the 2014 World Cup. Mario Fernandes’ 115th minute equalizer against Croatia in the quarterfinals and the noise of the Russian fans that filled the stadium after stood out as one of THE moments from the 2018 World Cup.

So, when Qatar won the rights to host the 2022 World Cup all the way back in 2010, questions were raised over why it was selected over other bidders with greater footballing heritage, such as Korea, Japan, and Australia. Qatar had never even qualified for a World Cup before, and here they were being allowed to host the greatest sporting event ever. But perhaps we were criticising Qatar for all the wrong things.

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As the years went by, a greater dilemma about having a World Cup in Qatar began to come to light. Not one about the country’s football worthiness, but one about how it is using the FIFA World Cup to "sportswash" its image.

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“Sportwashing” is what we call the act of a government or organisation using the positive reputation of sports to bury other problems that they are under fire for. In recent years, it is something that we have seen happen more often than ever. 

Saudi Arabia brought the glitz and glamour of F1 to Jeddah, distracting the world from its horrific human rights record and continued war crimes in Yemen. Beijing hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics amidst scrutiny regarding its genocide of Uighurs in the country’s western province of Xinjiang. Examples of sportwashing can be seen all the way back in 1936, when the Nazi Government brought the Summer Olympics to Berlin.

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The 2022 World Cup is seen as an attempt by the Qatari government to do the same. Obviously, they also want to bring football to their people, but the circumstances under which it is being done can’t be ignored. 

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World Cups require stadiums, and Qatar is building massive state-of-the-art ones. How are they doing so? Using migrant workers: 30,000 of whom come from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Philippines. But these blue-collar workers don’t enjoy the basic rights they deserve. Reports have emerged about unpaid wages, with workers even demonstrating outside company headquarters in the Qatari capital of Doha — many of whom were detained after.

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Migrant workers live in labour camps, whose names perfectly represent the types of places they are. Crowded spaces with more people than there should be, common facilities, and scorching heat are just some of the problems faced by migrant workers in the country. 37 migrant workers have died during the construction of these stadiums.

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The Qatari government is throwing away the humanity of these workers’ lives by building fancy stadiums to impress the world.

There is also underlying hypocrisy on FIFA’s side when it comes to awarding Qatar a World Cup hosting opportunity. FIFA, the global governing body of football, claims to support LGBT rights and inclusion in the sport. Yet, we are playing the World Cup in a country that has non-existent LGBT rights and even enforces the death penalty — the wrong kind of penalty FIFA should be endorsing.

Every person’s views on LGBT rights are theirs to make and theirs to voice, but the fact that FIFA says one thing and then does another should be shouted out loud for everyone to hear. 

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The use of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to sportswash the image of Qatar has brought up the question of whether fans should watch the tournament, and does watching the World Cup mean you support what Qatar is doing? I don’t think so.

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We football fans do not decide where the World Cup goes every four years; FIFA does. We just want to watch the sport we love so much. In today’s modern world, there is no feasible way to live morally perfect lives. The silicon chip inside the very device you are reading this article on may have been made in a Chinese sweatshop, but that doesn’t mean you should stop using your phone, does it?

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The best we can do is continue to call out FIFA and Qatar, one for its hypocrisy and the other for its attempted sportswashing. Because whether we like it or not, sportswashing is going to keep happening, and there is no running away from that.

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Written by: Nandan Patil

Designed by: Aryan Dahal

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