Is there hypocrisy of constant criticism of Qatar (World Cup)?

[SleepDreamThinkHuge]

I was speaking with my friends, and we all noticed how much outrage is given to Qatar compared to other countries. Yes, Qatar has some awful laws and things going in their country but so do a lot of countries. There was little outrage given to Russia World Cup 2018 and the Olympics in China but when it comes to Qatar a lot of people are virtue signalling. For example, singers like Dua Lipa saying they are not going to perform in Qatar because of human rights. But they do concerts in Dubai which have similar laws to Qatar. I think a lot of people need to realize that Qatar own or have influence to a lot of things in London (Shard, Harrods, Savoy hotel, stock exchange etc..)

I was listening to the radio and a caller made an interesting point "what country is 100 percent perfect?" Even in 2026 USA, Mexico and Canada World Cup there are many issues there. USA- Gun issues, Abortion not always being legalised etc... Mexico - lot of drug cartels there. But I bet you they will not get the same outrage as Qatar.

Where has anyone suggested that only white people play football?

we really need to stop this white prejudice towards others , like only white people play football

bollocks. I haven't mentioned anyone's ethnicity. I don't believe they have a culture of football playing in the way they do in, say, Iran or South Africa or Japan. If they had, they wouldn't have had to build all the stadia, would they?

They may get there in the end if it takes off. They certainly sponsor a lot of football and there are teams with Qatari ownership. That isn't a tradition of football in the way it is in other places.

But sure, try to make everyone out to be a racist. Nobody brings race into it until they try to defend the indefensible.

No one likes real, in your face diversity. They like the fake kind, where you have a diversity of skin colour but believe the exact same things.

Otherwise we would just hold these international events in Europe and who should want that?

Tbh having the games in Qatar has changed the country for the better — the international media focused on the worker abuses and many aspects of the Kafala system have changed for the better under this pressure. Hope they are not rescinded once the spotlight is off them …

It is ok to criticise but ultimately you should take a chance to meet other countries where they are instead of this quasi-colonial, high-handed position where you ignore them and hope they somehow change for the better? Hard to see how that happens

It's got the most unsuitable climate for football that you can imagine, except for Antarctica

How is the climate unsuitable? The temperatures aren’t blazing hot all year round you know.

There was corruption involved in the vote

True. FIFA and the IOC are both totally corrupt. But what can anyone do about it?

They had build all the stadia, which will be white elephants as soon as the tournament is over

Its actually nice to have the WC in a place where all the fans are gathered in essentially one city. It’s not going to happen again.

That said, it would have been better if it was a joint bid from the GCC that would have included Saudi, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, etc

It is ok to criticise but ultimately you should take a chance to meet other countries where they are instead of this quasi-colonial, high-handed position where you ignore them and hope they somehow change for the better? Hard to see how that happens

eh?

The focus on workers and lgbtq does seem somewhat hypocritical.

that doesn’t change the situation with women’s rights. The press and protesters are completely ignoring that problem. The are no armbands protesting women held hostage by a guardianship system. There is no endless loop of press coverage of women being arrested for the crime of being raped.

dubai should not be given a pass. Women there face criminal charges for reporting rape.

i see the Qatar Marketing Board have arrived.

The point of awarding the WC to countries, is in part, to help them improve their infrastructure. What is first needed are places where there is a willingness to have new stadia, that will be used for football after the WC has gone. We have all seen that giant bird toilet they built in Brazil - we complained about the circumstances of that stadium long and hard at the time. but whatever

FIFA don't allow more than 2 stadia in any one city for a reason, bit AFAIK there are 4 in and around Doha? All stadia in Qatar built from scratch, because there is nothing remotely suitable already that could have been improved or a new one built to replace it. That is what people like me mean when we say they don't have a tradition of playing football.

And yes, it would have been better spread over a few countries (and with less of the exploitation of workers and the deaths.).

As for the suitability of the weather: football is a winter season sport. It is already too hot for the players in Qatar - but in essence it is no worse than in 94 when it was in the USA so that's not really an argument against the location.

People's photos from the stadia seem to show them having a good time. They seem clean and comfortable and the food seems ok. The alcohol ban for all but the prawn sandwich brigade isn't on though. It only shows the organisers in a bad light as people who won't keep to their contracts, so there is that. I'm generally avoiding all news of the WC and not actually watching though so I'm not sure what the general feeling is among fans there. Have the games all been sold out? I would hope so, but again, that has happened in other places, i think.

Brefugee

they wouldn't have had to build all the stadia, would they?

Russia built six stadiums for the World Cup 🙄

Have you been there ? I lived there , they have plenty of stadiums , each local club has its own stadium , Barcelona’s current manger Xavi was the manger of one of the local clubs before moving to Barcelona

where do you think all these International teams are training atm? They are training at these clubs .

You want countries to change their ways and hew closer to Western mores before you deign to attend a soccer game in their country, for
example.

It seems counterproductive to me. There are no universal values, you do what you can to influence the rest of the world but unless you go full-on colonialist, you really can’t force change on other countries.

All stadia in Qatar built from scratch, because there is nothing remotely suitable already that could have been improved or a new one built to replace it.. I haven’t seen the new ones , but I remember seeing the one we’re they held the 2006 Asian games in, DS used to train in one of pitches next to it , its big, I think that’s were they Eng vs Iran was held.

You want countries to change their ways and hew closer to Western mores before you deign to attend a soccer game in their country, for
example.

i don't know why you keep spouting this stuff at me. I literally don't care about this world cup because of the way it was awarded. The fact that it is in a part of the world that i won't visit because of women's rights is neither here nor there.

As usual on these threads i ask: are you a football fan? Because if you'Re not it's a complete waste of your time trying to understand. I haven't asked the Qataris to change anything about their way of life outside of not exploiting migrant workers to death.

Lots of countries build some new stadiums. They don't build all new stadiums. That is rather the point. If there are super stadia already there, why aren't they being used? Because not one of them is big enough. That is how we know they aren't ready to host the WC. Because their stadia aren't (yet) big enough. It isn't bloody rocket science.

so just to be clear because i need to get to work:

I literally don't care where the WC is held, i do care how it is awarded
I literally don't care what time of year it is, i do care that the host country abide by the criteria that other host countries have to adhere to
I am baffled by everyone's desire to put rainbows everywhere, although there is a history of clubs doing that on particular occasions
I am mightily pissed off, still, that it was in Russia. I am hugely pissed off about those stadiums built in Brazil that are now big white elephants.

I don't need to justify my position on this WC in particular or football in general to anyone.

Landmark 40,000-seat open-air arena, built in 1976 & host to iconic international sporting events. that’s where the Eng vs Iran was held

The former stadium, built in 2003, had a seating capacity of 21,282 and was demolished in 2015.[6] The new Al Rayyan Stadium has a seating capacity of 45,000.[2]
and that’s where the Wales VS USA was held ,

brefugee technically they’ve only built 6 stadiums from scratch , just like Russia ,

i see the Qatar Marketing Board have arrived

🙄

What is first needed are places where there is a willingness to have new stadia, that will be used for football after the WC has gone

This is a problem for both the Olympics
and the WC. Even in a mega-city like Beijing, they couldn’t use all of the facilities they built. I lived there, many of the Olympic venues are in complete disrepair. It’s not a problem that is easily solved

The alcohol ban for all but the prawn sandwich brigade isn't on though

It was really sneaky how they signed these agreements years ago just to renege right before the WC when nothing could be done about it.

Nonetheless it’s a great atmosphere and with all the fans essentially located in one city it’s given it a festive feel that won’t be repeated again.

technically they’ve only built 6 stadiums from scratch , just like Russia

then it's not as bad as it could be, which is a bit of a relief.

YABU @SleepDreamThinkHuge. When a country steps into the spotlight people are going to comment and not all those comments will be complimentary.🤷‍♀️

I'm glad Qatar's appalling record on human rights is being highlighted and I'm tired of their yapping and moaning about the criticism.🙄

Qatar now seem to be admitting that about 500 workers died building world cup stadiums, which is kind of insane.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_football_stadiums_in_Qatar

Basically one mid-sized stadium (40,000) and some tiddlers prior to the World Cup, the smallest having a capacity of 200. Now 6 new ones all at least equalling that amount. I doubt that the situation is really comparable with Russia.

I see the Qataris now say 400-500 people died building them. Well, that's an increase in estimate from 3. I think the truth is that they don't want to know therefore haven't been keeping proper records.

And even that is not the full picture. If 500 people died, there will be a much greater number of workers who didn't die, but sustained life changing injuries. Their livelihoods and lives destroyed.

Upthread it was said that the Guardian's figure of 6,500 dead was fake news.

But it doesn't seem to me that the Qataris are in a position to say this. They haven't been keeping very good records, it seems, on the causes of death. The Guardian has not retracted the claim and we've just seen the Qataris amend their estimate upwards.

I've no idea whether that Guardian figure is accurate or not. But I'm inclined to believe it's plausible given the way workers around the Gulf have been treated for years, ie, as entirely disposable.

well you either count them or you don't. But if you don't count them properly you're hardly in a position to refute the numbers.
And then you have to set parameters of what you count - kind of like Covid. Of covid and with covid are different things.

I'm not convinced that Qatar needs so many shiny new, big stadia. We'll see.

I think that’s the total number of migrant workers who died in Qatar since being awarded the WC, whether they worked on WC projects or not, and natural causes or not (line might be blurred here too as does working on the metro count? Other infrastructure or buildings that will outlast the stadiums?) But unclear who is counted as migrant worker since technically almost everyone who lives in Qatar is a ‘migrant’ worker.

Surely the companies contracted to build the stadiums would keep these records for their projects? Seems most were not local firms.

A widely shared problem among the migrant workers has been payment—a lot of workers have been cheated or given pay different from what had been promised, etc.

These are difficult for a powerless worker to resolve, as you can imagine.

A piece of very dark humour I saw on another website, commenting on Qatar's loss to the Netherlands:

"Unfair to have a go at Qatar's team. Apparently they only have 6000 players to choose from which based on their counting system as applied to construction deaths actually means less than 400."