By the time the 2022 World Cup comes around, as many as 4,000 workers will have died in terrible working conditions in Qatar. This needs to stop, now.
Our World Cup is in danger. The beautiful game is going to be very ugly, in 2022. In fact, it is hideously ugly already, and one of the worst stains of all is developing in Qatar. The horrific statistics of worker deaths in Qatar, as they prepare for the 2022 World Cup, are both startling and disgusting.
Independent groups estimate that as many as 4,000 workers will die building the Qatar World Cup stadiums. I wrote about this a year ago;
In the space of a year more or less nothing has happened, the World Cup certainly hasn't been taken off of Qatar, in fact FIFA has managed to bury their heads firmly in the sand and stay relatively unscathed by this horrible human tragedy, as yet.
The scale of this disaster is terrifying. Let me spell it out very clearly, more human beings will die building the World Cup stadiums to be used by Qatar in 2022 than died in the World Trade Center attack of 2001.
Where's the outrage?
Thankfully, the required levels of said outrage are beginning to bubble to the top of mainstream media. Marina Hyde's brilliant article in the Guardian is one of the better tilts at exposing the terrible rates of death in Qatar.There are also several groups growing, for example Playfair Qatar, all trying to highlight this disaster, and all trying to end it now.
Why should we stand by and watch this happen? If you love football, if you love the World Cup, stand up and do something about this.
Forget that even, if you love people, you should be doing something about this tragedy.
Personally I am going to start with a campaign of Tweets to the major Qatar 2022 sponsors, asking them if they are aware of the human tragedy happening there right now. I will be asking them if they are prepared for their product's name to be associated with what will go down as FIFA's greatest tragedy, the approximately 4,000 deaths it will take to build the Qatar stadiums.
No doubt I am going to get blocked, a lot, but maybe one Tweet will get through to one human being, and that human being will talk to another, and so forth, and maybe somewhere down the line we might stop even one human being from dying of heat-stroke, malnutrition, exhaustion or other in the hot Qatar sun.
Read about it, learn about it, and ask yourself, are you okay with this? If you find yourself very much not okay with it, stand up and do something about it.
Extend a hand to a brother (or sister) on the far side of the World, sweating it out today under the baking sun for £6 a day.
Do it now, because when 2022 rolls around, if nothing has changed, that's going to be one depressing, sobering World Cup to watch. A tournament built on the back of human tragedy. We don't need that, and these guys below very much don't need that.
Do it.
 |
| Qatar World Cup working conditions |
Our World Cup is in danger. The beautiful game is going to be very ugly, in 2022. In fact, it is hideously ugly already, and one of the worst stains of all is developing in Qatar. The horrific statistics of worker deaths in Qatar, as they prepare for the 2022 World Cup, are both startling and disgusting.
 |
| Figures courtesy of PlayFair Qatar |
Independent groups estimate that as many as 4,000 workers will die building the Qatar World Cup stadiums. I wrote about this a year ago;
Even FIFA are admitting that as many as 1,200 migrant workers have died horrible deaths in Qatar, building the stadiums that will probably now not even see any World Cup games. They are dying in droves from disease, hunger and workplace accidents. Amnesty international estimate that as many as 4,000 migrant workers will die if Qatar are allowed continue with their disgusting system.
In the space of a year more or less nothing has happened, the World Cup certainly hasn't been taken off of Qatar, in fact FIFA has managed to bury their heads firmly in the sand and stay relatively unscathed by this horrible human tragedy, as yet.
The scale of this disaster is terrifying. Let me spell it out very clearly, more human beings will die building the World Cup stadiums to be used by Qatar in 2022 than died in the World Trade Center attack of 2001.
Where's the outrage?
Thankfully, the required levels of said outrage are beginning to bubble to the top of mainstream media. Marina Hyde's brilliant article in the Guardian is one of the better tilts at exposing the terrible rates of death in Qatar.There are also several groups growing, for example Playfair Qatar, all trying to highlight this disaster, and all trying to end it now.
Why should we stand by and watch this happen? If you love football, if you love the World Cup, stand up and do something about this.
Forget that even, if you love people, you should be doing something about this tragedy.
Personally I am going to start with a campaign of Tweets to the major Qatar 2022 sponsors, asking them if they are aware of the human tragedy happening there right now. I will be asking them if they are prepared for their product's name to be associated with what will go down as FIFA's greatest tragedy, the approximately 4,000 deaths it will take to build the Qatar stadiums.
No doubt I am going to get blocked, a lot, but maybe one Tweet will get through to one human being, and that human being will talk to another, and so forth, and maybe somewhere down the line we might stop even one human being from dying of heat-stroke, malnutrition, exhaustion or other in the hot Qatar sun.
Read about it, learn about it, and ask yourself, are you okay with this? If you find yourself very much not okay with it, stand up and do something about it.
Extend a hand to a brother (or sister) on the far side of the World, sweating it out today under the baking sun for £6 a day.
Do it now, because when 2022 rolls around, if nothing has changed, that's going to be one depressing, sobering World Cup to watch. A tournament built on the back of human tragedy. We don't need that, and these guys below very much don't need that.
Do it.
 |
| Human beings: Could do with your help |
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