Qatar’s World Cup, one year on: where are we now? – Football Weekly

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Hello, and welcome to the Guardian Football Weekly.

It's a year since the World Cup final in Qatar, a brilliant game of football.

You might remember it, the one where Messi finally lifted the trophy.

It was a good tournament, opportunity for fans across the Middle East to enjoy the greatest sporting competition there is.

Off the pitch, we ran a series of specials about workers' rights, women's rights, and LGBTQ plus rights.

And we promised we'd revisit Qatar a year on and find out if anything had changed for the people living and working there.

What is the legacy for people in Qatar, but also for world football and FIFA?

Jani and Fantino said this was the best World Cup ever.

And beyond Qatar, what impact has this had on other autocratic regimes involving themselves in sport?

And what should our role be in discussing social issues in all countries that host major tournaments going forward?

Lots of questions.

An excellent panel to give us some answers on today's Guardian Football Weekly.

Now that panel is Philippe Eau Claire, the moral conscience of Guardian Football Weekly.

Bonjour Sava, Philippe.

Sava, Sava.

If my voice is a bit croaky, I apologise in advance

because it is a bit croaky this morning.

You sound good to me.

The Guardian journalist Pete Patterson joins us from currently in Bangladesh.

Hey, Pete.

Hi.

Happy to be here.

Yeah.

And Karim Zidane, writer on sports, power, and politics for The Guardian and the New York Times, founder of the Sports Politica podcast and newsletter, joins us from Toronto, where it is three in the morning.

So this is above and beyond, Kareem.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Oh, it's my pleasure, Max.

Thank you for having me.

Right, Pete, you've been reporting on Qatar since the World Cup last year.

I mean, a lot of people talked about it before the World Cup.

Not many talked about it during the World Cup.

Very few people have been talking about it in the years since.

We covered migrant workers' rights, LGBTQ plus rights, and women's rights.

Let's start with migrant workers.

Has anything really changed?

Well, the answer to that is it depends who you talk to.

If you talk to the Qatari authorities, FIFA, the UN's international labor organization, they claim a lot has changed.

And they claim that those changes have been maintained post-World Cup.

And they'll point to the fact that some significant new laws were introduced shortly before the World Cup that allowed workers to freely change jobs, which they couldn't do before.

They'll say that there is a minimum wage now, that there's more protection of workers under heat stress and this easier access to justice.

To some extent, their claims stand up.

Is Qatar now in a better position in terms of the way it treats its huge migrant workforce than it was when it was ordered a cup in 2010?

Yes, it is.

Is it as in a good position as they claim it to be?

No, it's not.

And the evidence for that comes from talking to migrant workers, which I do a lot.

And if you talk to, I think particularly of a Pakistani man called Shakirullah Khan, who was employed on the World Cup as a security guard.

They had a really important role in the World Cup.

He was told his contract would be six months long.

But literally, a couple of days after that amazing World Cup final that you've just been talking about, he and hundreds of other security guards were laid off

with at least three months work lost.

And when they started to demand that they were paid what they were promised and that their contracts would be fulfilled, they were repeatedly turned down.

And when they went to the headquarters of the company that was employing them to negotiate for their wages, the company called the police.

250 of them were rounded up by the police and deported back to their countries within a week.

And Shakir and two of his colleagues were thrown in jail, sentenced to six months and a 10,000 rial fine, which is more than they earned in the time they were employed as security guards in the World Cup.

They served over six months.

One of the three of them was in jail for almost nine months.

And so if you match that with the claims of the Qatari authorities and of FIFA, you see there's a huge gap between what they are saying and what's actually happening to workers in Qatar today.

Karim doesn't, I mean, that's such a shocking story when you hear it, but

I am not surprised.

Oh, I'm not surprised in the slightest, honestly, Max.

When you really think about it, it's been a year on, and we still have the vast majority of the major issues that we were facing and we were reporting on well over a year ago.

When you think about it, there have been very few, if any, investigations into the deaths of migrant workers over the years.

There are no trade unions.

I mean, where are the reparations for historic abuses that everyone was intending on reaching, right?

So there are plenty of these post-World Cup abuses taking place.

And the difference now is that there's even less media coverage on it.

And it just seems as if the world has really moved on at this point.

We're thinking of different topics entirely.

I'm wondering,

it's more a question than a statement.

The question that

I put to all of you is, when we talk about the freedom of movement from migrant workers, I mean, my understanding is that, in fact, it might be so in legal terms, but that in the reality,

employees still need the NOCs, I think they're called,

non-objection certificates in order to move from one job to the other.

And when it comes to the minimum wage, there is a minimum wage, but it stayed the same despite for three years now, despite the fact that there is a big problem with inflation there, as there is absolutely everywhere.

So, first of all, is that correct?

And is it another way to gauge the progress or lack of that has been made there?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, let's pick up on the minimum wage.

If you actually talk to workers, the thing they care most about is getting paid a decent wage and getting paid on time.

Every other abuse they can put up with as long as they get a fair wage.

So when Qatar introduced this minimum wage, it was a big deal until you actually drilled down and realized that the basic minimum wage worked out at about one pound an hour.

And as you say, it's almost now three years since that was introduced.

It was at the time it was introduced, it was supposed to be reviewed reviewed regularly.

It still hasn't been reviewed.

Three years on, it's at the same level.

And, you know, we're talking about the richest country in the world per capita and the basic minimum wage is it's poverty wages.

There's no other way to describe it.

Pete, tell us about Saiku Kolli as well, who was a teenager from Gambia who you spoke to.

Yeah, so Saiku

and two other very young Gambians, hard to know exactly their age, but definitely teenagers, also went to Qatar just before the World World Cup and got jobs with the same company

and were laid off in the same way.

And what was really interesting is they wanted to go to their company headquarters to join that negotiation to try and get their wages, but they couldn't afford the 10 real

fee to contribute to the transport to get to that.

that negotiation, what the Qataris called a strike.

They couldn't afford, that's about two pounds, they couldn't afford that.

They had so little money.

And so they were essentially turfed out of their company accommodation straight after the World Cup.

And eventually, they, with the help of the ILO, I believe, they were put up in a government shelter.

But this is not a shelter in the sense that you would understand it.

They describe it as a prison.

And two of them are still there, including Saiku now.

And they have been fighting incredibly bravely, actually, for the whole year since the World Cup to get compensation

for the loss of earnings because they were laid off.

And, you know, they have no legal representation.

They don't speak Arabic.

And they are just struggling and fighting to get some kind of compensation, to get something out of this journey that they thought would bring them a reasonable income that they could send home and look after their families.

And as far as I know, two of them are still there in Qatar, you know, bravely and desperately fighting for their rights.

I mean, one thing, Max, here, which is very important, is the fact that the cases that we're hearing about now are cases of people who were directly linked to the organization of the World Cup, directly linked, absolutely essential cogs in the wheels of that huge football machine.

They were there to ensure the security and safety of the spectators and the officials and everybody else.

So which means as well that FIFA should also be brought to book on this one because there's what's happening in Qatar and there's the whole thing that's been the whole spiel of FIFA,

which

in this particular cases cannot simply get away scot-free from that because these are people that actually were involved and paid or not paid for a FIFA event.

And what do we hear from FIFA so far?

A deafening silence.

It would be easy for FIFA to say, well, we're doing our bit, you know, we're trying to take care of the people that helped us organize this fantastic event.

They're not.

So the fault is not just with the Qatari state or Qatari regime.

It also lies with FIFA.

And I would say, I would extend that.

It also lies with the football associations and member associations, which are part of FIFA and which are not actually scrutinizing what their organization is doing.

It's not just the Qataris which should be the subject of scrutiny and criticism.

It should also be the people who used Qatar as the venue for the biggest event in the sports world.

FIFA earned

a record $7.5 billion in the four-year cycle leading up to the World Cup in Qatar, has yet to announce the results of a review launched at the FIFA Congress in March into whether the steps it has taken to provide

remedies to workers who suffered abuses linked to the tournament are in line with its human rights commitments.

I think, Karim, a lot of football fans listening to this will just, A, not be surprised, but also feel totally sort of helpless about this has happened.

The world has moved on, there's nothing we can do about it.

It's problematic in many ways, but this is really a issue with sports fans in general.

I tend to find that that across sports, and I've reported on quite a few sports, sports fans tend to be fickle.

I mean,

it's an issue for a little while and then you tend to move on.

At the end of the day, they're thinking about the sport, they're thinking about

escapism.

That's what sports is to a vast majority of people who watch it.

People going through difficult times, hard days, just a regular day at the office and they want to go home and just watch regular sports.

That really comes down to the power of using sports as a tool for influence and for reputation laundering, which Qatar did so well with the World Cup, because it wasn't just about people realizing that there were all these human rights abuses taking place in Qatar.

It was the fact that Qatar was still able to host the World Cup and get away with it all and really deal with absolutely no consequences in the process.

What we see is Qatar continuously claim now that

their labor reforms lead the region.

But honestly, all that tells me is just how bad its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, actually are.

It's really not a statement about how good Qatar is.

And that's really terrifying when we think of where sports is heading just generally.

The amount of events taking place in both the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and what is yet to take place in the future in Qatar.

We'll get to sort of the

branching out of sports wishing, I guess.

A spokesperson for the Qatar government said that the World Cup, quote, accelerated labor reforms in Qatar, creating a significant and lasting tournament legacy.

Workers now benefit from minimum wage, the freedom to change jobs, a simplified complaints mechanism with easier access to justice and improved health and safety standards.

Adding one year on from the World Cup, Qatar's commitment to labor reform remains as strong as ever.

If you don't mind, I can just pick up on a couple of things that Philippe and Karim said.

Please, yeah.

I mean, I absolutely agree.

I think Philippe's comment is so important.

You know, I repeatedly went back to Qatar, to FIFA, and to the United Nations International Labour Organization regarding these cases of these workers that I've talked about.

And

none of them have taken any steps to remedy what's happened, to support these workers, to

make up for the damage that they've suffered.

I mean, there's been absolute, you know,

these organizations and these bodies have just turned their backs on these workers.

You know,

you've just quoted the Qataris.

Fine, let me quote.

Shakirullah Khan back to you.

And he said, you know, I went to Qatar with so much hope and all my hopes turned to mud.

And I think what he said reflects the views of a lot of workers who are still in Qatar and who have left.

I would just make one slightly positive point, though.

Karim, you're absolutely right.

I mean, Qatar got a huge amount of prestige from the World Cup, but they didn't get away with it scot-free.

You know, they paid a price for a system that exploited the workforce that helped the World Cup happen.

And I think

there will be a message to other authoritarian regimes that if you want to host a global, you know, a mega sporting event, you will be put under scrutiny.

The spotlight will be on you and there will be an expectation and pressure for things to change.

How far that goes, well, time will tell.

But I think that's where our role as journalists is important because we get to shine that spotlight on countries.

And

I think we did that fairly well.

You're absolutely right there, Pete, to an extent, but I think I'm maybe just a bit more cynical than you.

I tend to believe that, especially when we're talking about, say, Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia looking to what Qatar has done and how it can improve upon it, I think Saudi Arabia is just going to be smarter.

When it comes to sports washing, they've already said they're not going to bow down to the pressure.

We've seen Mohammed bin Salman outwardly say, if sports washing is going to increase my GDP, then I'm going to continue to do sports washing.

We didn't hear any similar statements from Qatar.

If anything, Saudi Arabia has already proven to be more brazen in its approach.

And I'll take it one step further.

And I have noticed that Saudi Arabia is just simply better at silencing potential criticism.

They've done this through non-disparagement clauses that we've seen being inserted into contracts.

In my reporting for the New York Times, I reported about Leo Messi's relationship with Saudi Arabia through the tourism embassy.

And we had the contract that showed just how much money Leo Messi was making in working with Saudi Arabia.

And it was $25 million over three years for social media posts and occasional visits but here was the key thing there was a little clause in there that said Leo Messi could not tarnish Saudi Arabia's image and I think that's the sort of weapon that Saudi is going to use in the future the more people that choose to work with Saudi Arabia you've officially bought those people silence and just think of the amount of celebrities that are already working with Saudi so I think Saudi Arabia is just ahead of the game already right now that's a really interesting point isn't it Philip because if you think about you know Beckham and him taking all that money from qatar and i haven't seen his contract but you know i i presume part of the quid pro quo is you're going to say this place is nice right if we're giving you 150 million quid yes um

do you do you think you given what karma saying about the number of sports stars that are working with saudi the amount of money they're offering you is enough right to to to stop people saying things yeah and then you see them also the the saudis have obviously got i mean i would add i think we're probably going to talk in more detail about this in in a few minutes but the Saudis also have a repressive system which is far more efficient and brutal, actually, than the Qataris.

The Qataris

is a police state, but it is not a state that routinely executes its own citizens.

That's quite a big difference.

When it comes to Beckham, and I'm happy you used his name here, because it enables me to go back to the question you were asking about LGBTQI plus people in Qatar.

Because obviously, David Beckham,

famously known as the metro-sexual emblem of modern Britain and so forth, and global, in fact, a global icon

and supporter of the cause, so to speak.

They were very careful during the World Cup itself

to be, I mean, the Qataris, to be far more tolerant than they normally would be.

Now, I'm still in touch with friends and acquaintances from this community in Qatar.

What they're all saying is that whatever happened during this month in the World Cup, which was mostly by the way for foreign visitors, you can forget about it.

It's back to normal.

There's absolutely no change whatsoever.

There's still the same fear.

You've still got to be extraordinarily careful about what you do.

You run, you know, it's very risky business.

So

just to, you know, it basically hasn't changed at all, Max, for that.

And which makes the involvement of people like David Beckham for Qatar, and I would say

Jordan Henderson for Saudi, people people who were seen as allies,

which makes it seem even more shocking, I have to say, certainly to me and I guess to many other people.

David Beckham said in October he was proud to be an ambassador for the 2022 World Cup.

I had lots of conversations with LGBTQ plus community when I was there and they said they'd been treated perfectly fine.

You can go back to listen to the special that we did on that subject.

which came out during the World Cup last year.

I guess, Karim,

on those rights, on LGBTQ plus rights and women's rights, realistically, what should our expectations be?

You know,

if FIFA are saying, and Qatar is saying, the World Cup and, you know, the sort of

the argument that say, I don't know, Jordan Henderson, I think he made, and forgive me if I'm wrong, saying, you know, like, I can change the, you know, like, this could be a poll, we can go there and we can change hearts and minds.

Like, realistically, what can we expect any football tournament to have, you know, to

change a society, whatever that society is.

I think we simply romanticize sports too much with this idea that it's really a mechanism and a vehicle for actual societal change.

That's really a notion that I think is pushed by the organizations themselves to empower themselves further and make them seem far more valuable and needed, really.

But that's just not the case.

And also, when it comes from athletes like Jordan Henderson, even the ones who mean it in good faith rather than bad faith, it does feel like sort of white knighting a bit, for lack of a better term here, where you're just assuming that you can take your morals and just jump somewhere else.

And just simply by existing in that place, you're sort of going to convert everybody that's there.

That's really just not how the world works.

I speak as an Arab here who has spoken to plenty of women and to plenty of people within the queer communities across the region.

And a lot don't relate with Western standards.

And that's not to say they don't want improvements in human rights.

They absolutely do, but they want it done their way, not necessarily the way that's being preached at them.

The surprising lack of local voices and perspectives during coverage of the Qatar World Cup, and I appreciate that the Guardian did absolutely attempt to reach out to people.

And I know when it comes to LGBTQ community, in particular in Qatar, that would be very difficult to reach and to access people, but it's that lack of local perspective that it seemed like we were missing a layer of nuance that was really necessary to resonate with the actual communities of the region.

So that's something i think we have to do better moving forward yeah and actually we got you know we got criticism for that karim actually and and and you know it's a really important point isn't it you know what what sort of who are we to say this is what we believe you know are you know this is lots of middle-class white people saying this is all terrible and you know the the the i guess the argument the converse argument is you know if you're a gay person in in Qatar,

you are still a Qatari, right?

And

you're not free.

Oh, there's no doubt about it but the case is as there has to be a case to be made here for the fact that who has the the moral standing to to preach these values i mean say it's coming from the united states and we're talking about lgbtq plus rights where the united states is a place where trans people for instance aren't safe so really where is the distinction

the on that level between say florida and qatar and why would an american outlet have more right to criticize the qatari approach to it than

criticize their own country.

So that's another issue that

it makes it a bit of a tightrope to walk, unfortunately.

Even though the criticism is absolutely valid, I must stress this, that

working and speaking up for human rights is absolutely essential.

I would say there's a huge difference between exposing the truth and

preaching.

And that as long as you keep to the first side of the bargain, first half of the bargain, you're doing your job as a journalist.

If you do the other one, you're actually being a problem, part of the problem yourself.

And I don't want to pat ourselves on the back, but we tried to be...

the first part of the first category of people, though it's true that there was an awful lot of the preaching as well.

And

quite an extraordinary sense of entitlement coming from some individuals and some entities, as a matter of fact.

And you could actually say from FIFA, being the biggest of these entities, having a sense of entitlement, which actually makes us absolute, well, we're nothings.

We're amoebas, we're

proto-Zoharians or whatever

in this respect.

What we need to do, of course, is that the prism that we've used to look at the sporting event like the World Cup in Qatar, we still use the same prism when we're talking about other sporting events in other areas, which I think is also, if we're talking about the legacy of Qatar, for me, that should be one of them.

Is that we've learned how to talk about a World Cup and the human rights dimension, the political dimension, the geopolitical dimension, and so on.

We should have done it far more for Russia 2018.

We should have done it far more for the Olympic Games in China.

We did it a bit, but we should have done it far more.

We have to do the same thing when it comes to the 2026 World Cup, which by...

In some respects, it's going to be the least problematic of those to come.

But no, sorry, 2030, 2026 America.

Ooh, excuse me.

But more about this later, I'm sure, Max.

But for me, that's a very important part of the actual legacy of the World Cup: the way we look at sport and the way we've got to use the same way to look at sport when we are talking about other cultures, other areas,

other people, other places.

Pete, Pete, I know you've got to go.

So, look, thanks so much for your time.

Pete Patson there, Guardian Jonas.

Thank you.

Thanks very much.

And that'll do for part one.

We'll be back in a second.

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Welcome to part two of the Guardian Football Weekly.

On the legacy of Qatar, Kareem, I mean, do you think Qatar having the World Cup

is directly responsible, I don't know if responsible is the right word, has a real sort of causational link between what they've done and Saudi Arabia buying Newcastle, their broader moves into golf and boxing?

I think it's impossible to think of the region in general and the sort of just rise of sports investment in the region without considering the regional rivalries in general.

There is some serious geopolitical jousting, you know, and sports is currently one of the primary stages.

And the rivalries are quite simple.

It's between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and Qatar against really the rest of the region, as it's proven to be sort of the black sheep of the region.

So really, that lens is crucial to analyzing pretty much everything that's going on.

Mohammed bin Salman's approach, even from the beginning, his Vision 2030 master plan, I mean, that's named after directly taken from the United Arab Emirates having the exact same title, Vision 2030.

So you don't have to look too far to see how they're copying each other and trying to improve upon each other and one-up each other in terms of the various sports ventures, right?

And the World Cup is sort of going to be the next stage for Saudi Arabia.

They see this as the opportunity to not only host a second Arab World Cup, but to host an even better showcase, the best event event that's ever taken place.

I'll take us back to boxing for one second and say Saudi Arabia has suddenly become this global hub for boxing.

They just hosted this really crossover showcase event that had a former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Nganu against the current boxing heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.

And if you saw the glitz and glamour at this event, you'd think it was the opening ceremony for a World Cup or something because they had a whole showcase.

You had dancers out, multiple celebrities performing beforehand.

They had the ring coming out from beneath the ground.

So sort of imagine from there with that kind of ambition, boundless resources, what they're intending to do for a World Cup, just to prove they are the regional hegemon.

It's another way for them to sort of magnify and underscore that key point.

And how does that benefit them geopolitically in the sense of, is it just look at us, we're better than you, and sort of a country ego thing?

Or is there something deeper than that?

Further is Saudi nationalism.

You have to understand the Saudi perspective in particular here.

As someone who grew up in the Middle East, I grew up in and I lived for

about 10 years in a country called Bahrain.

It's this island kingdom that's just off from Saudi Arabia.

It's connected to Saudi through this causeway.

And I remember growing up, I was there until I was about 14 years old.

And I was living in this compound, as you do if you're an expat.

And the Saudis would flood this compound on the weekend because there was a bar there, sort of this secluded bar, and they'd come to drink because they couldn't drink in Saudi Arabia.

They simply couldn't do anything there.

I'll take it one step further.

I'm Egyptian, and growing up and being in Egypt, you regularly, unfortunately, saw drunk Saudis and Saudis making a fool of themselves there because they were that desperate to get out and do something, and suddenly they're exposed to this life, women, alcohol, and that was the impression that Saudi gave to the world for so many years, really.

So now they have this opportunity to bring the world to them, to have the world's top celebrities come to Saudi Arabia and not only perform there, but promote the country, talk about how beautiful and incredible it is.

This

sort of

re-energizes Saudi nationalism.

And I think that's a key part of Mohammed bin Salman's overall political agenda.

So sports is crucial there because what other way can you really get such a unified force, especially of young Saudi men, suddenly behind you, loyal and supportive of you, through football.

It's such a great example.

We saw Cristiano Ronaldo on Saudi National Day don

the

traditional Saudi garments, the thaub, you know, the headdress, and had a sword in hand.

And in this sort of promotional video for al-Nasr, that was a complete work of propaganda, but it sort of displays Saudi national pride.

It's modernized new interpretation of Saudi pride that's being exported to the world.

And it's being exported in the hands of these celebrities, these most famous people in the world.

So that's sort of the advantage that we're seeing now.

And all of that, Philippe, would be fine, wouldn't it, if it wasn't a repressive regime?

No, I don't think it would be fine at all.

Sorry, my point being that, like, there's no reason why the biggest boxing fight shouldn't be in, or the biggest football match shouldn't be in Saudi Arabia as opposed to Portugal or England.

It would probably be easier to swallow if it were a different kind of regime.

Because obviously, we always say that, Max, we have to differentiate between the country and the regime are two very different things.

When you're criticizing Saudi Arabia, you're not criticizing the country.

You're actually not criticizing ordinary Saudis.

You're talking about a particular regime, which is authoritarian, brutal, violent, repressive regime, and which will not change.

So yes, it's far, far worse, because it props up a regime that is portraying itself as being something it isn't.

When we talk about, for example,

the fate and

plight of women in Saudi Arabia, the number of times I've been, I've heard back, yes, but they can drive now.

And you think, okay, that really is a game changer, isn't it?

It was a game changer in the media.

They keep talking about it.

When you look at the Saudi Arabia Football Federation LinkedIn page, which is very interesting, by the way, you will see that half of the posts are devoted to the women's side, the women's national team, which didn't exist, I believe, until 2017, basically until Bohemet bin Salman took power.

But

they want to put it in front of all they do in terms of communication, despite the fact it bears very little relation to actually what young women wanting to play football would face in Saudi Arabia.

But that's not the point.

The point is to prop up this image, this idea that this regime is making progress, is becoming more this, more that, more palatable perhaps to

Western states.

Well, it is in one way, but it's not changing in the other.

And what happens is that we, the Western states, are so gullible and we're willing victims and we find our own interest as well in this because our own governments, I mean, I'm sorry, Max, and I don't know if the lawyers will let it through, but we've learned about the cables exchanged between the British diplomatic services and various countries in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, putting pressure basically.

on football and football clubs, on the Premier League.

I'm thinking about Saudi Arabia and Newcastle, yeah, and the Premier League.

So we are complicit in that.

So yes, there's a huge difference,

whether it's a rather benign regime or whether it is an oppressive regime.

Karim, you wanted to talk about whether Qatar needed sports washing anymore, whether it had succeeded, you know, the World Cup had succeeded, you know, it's fulfilled what it needed to do.

And specifically with Qatar's role now in trying to sort of mediate between Hamas and Israel, which is like totally fascinating that

the World Cup could have had any happening, could have had any impact on that.

Well, I really do think so, Max.

So let's take it back to the sportswashing thing.

Really, yes, I think there was a sportswashing element to this.

Yes, there was Qatar did attempt to launder its reputation, but it really paints an incomplete picture of Qatar's intentions overall when it came to hosting the World Cup in general.

Now, to add some context here,

in the years leading up to the World Cup, Qatar was facing a diplomatic crisis, right?

Like,

lest we forget that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt all had this de facto blockade, you know, and they severed ties, bilateral relations, the whole thing between 2017 and I believe 2021.

They eventually restored ties, but truly, I would argue that in part it was because those same nations wanted to benefit from the fact that one of their neighbors was hosting the World Cup and they didn't want to sacrifice any of these economic gains that could come from that.

So really, Qatar effectively leveraged the World Cup to sort of mend relationships with Arab neighbors.

This was

a really understated instance of sports diplomacy.

It's really often overlooked.

And it's one of the major advantages that Qatar gained.

And I would say that beyond that, beyond the fact that now pretty much the entire world that watched the World Cup knows what Qatar is, that in itself is this incredible marketing achievement.

Now when it takes its position on the world stage as it is doing right now in the current war between Israel and Hamas.

The fact that Qatar was one of the countries that is able to negotiate with Hamas, and yes, Qatar has a history of being able to play sort of this very strange mediation role, but now it's front and center in the news.

Everybody's talking about Qatar's role, the fact that it's actually influencing these changes.

So really, I contend in the end that, you know, Qatar's expanding role in these diplomatic matters

is showing and it's really evidence that the nation has moved far beyond football in its grasp for global influence now.

But

let's not forget that football really played an essential role here.

Just to be clear, you're not saying that because Qatar hosted the World Cup,

they have become a major player on the world stage in terms of being a mediator for Israel and Hamas.

But as a result of the coveries they've had thanks to 2022, they are more central to the reporting of it.

Everybody knows what Qatar is when...

you know, when the news comes out that that's where the negotiations are taking place.

But then, Karim, is it like we want somebody to be doing that negotiation, right?

Like we

want peace in the Middle East.

You know, every picture you see, every video you see is like totally heartbreaking.

So

then isn't it good that Qatar had a World Cup and then its influence growed and now it can be in a position to do that?

It's an excellent question, honestly, but it's not necessarily neither good nor bad.

The point stands that it is on your part on your part, Max, which is yes, we do want the hostages to be released.

We do want to be able to mediate a peace and hopefully reach

a true complete ceasefire in this situation.

Whether or not Qatar can actually achieve that role, whether its role is being over-inflated, or whether it's reached the absolute end of its true mediation capabilities, we just don't know right now.

It seems that it has.

But overall, while this is beneficial for the world, if we do reach these ceasefires, the fact that it's led to the release of more than 100 hostages, we can't neglect

the selfish interest that Qatar has in this role as well.

It had its moment in the sun.

It had this coming out party with the World Cup, and now it's trying to cement that place.

And here is its opportunity, and it's taking it.

So it's also done in complete selfish interests.

I mean, Qatar, at the end of the day, hosts

one of the United States' naval bases, right?

Its biggest one in the region is there in qatar that's a defense pact at the end of the day qatar is looking out for its own interests and those include its own security interests you know every country every regime whatever is look looks out for itself right i mean that's what we're that's what every country is doing all the time right and and i suppose you know and and actually beyond that it was something that i didn't touch on with the the migrant workers

and we touched on it in those specials is that

is the fact that you know the this the whole ecosystem of the world is is on show here because to to most of our listeners who are 50% in the UK, a lot in the US and Australia, sort of Western listeners,

it's the fact that somebody would leave their country to go there because there is hope there is a sort of really fatally depressing part of all of this.

There are so many places in the world where it's so bad that you might think, oh, I want to go and be a security card in a country that is repressive and I don't really know what I'm getting myself into.

It's a sad state of affairs, really.

That's not a question, I guess.

It's just generally a sad state of affairs.

I think of it in two perspectives.

You've got that perspective where those who are

looking for work there, I mean, it's generally a desperate situation and last resort.

But when you think of it from the perspective of, say, the World Cup itself, let's play devil's advocate here.

The hosting the World Cup in Qatar did have some slight benefits when I think of the fact that not only was this the first World Cup in the Arab world, but you could sense from the fans in attendance that it was a completely different sort of audience than we're used to at World Cups, right?

Let's put aside the clear solidarity for Palestine that we saw during the World Cup last year, which really doesn't have much of a history when it comes to World Cups.

It was the fact that Qatar, in Qatar, a lot of different nations were able to access that World Cup that would not necessarily have gotten visas into the Western world.

That's something we have to consider as well.

I think a lot of the times, and I see this with my own listeners to my show and readers, it's very hard for them to understand and to look beyond their Western perspective.

So, I sometimes really ask people to be like, sometimes it's really not about you, it's not about how you, somebody sitting in the UK, feels right now.

It actually has a completely different impact on people on the other side of the world.

But again, everything comes with its pros and its cons.

And we just mentioned that, Max.

And actually, I thought that that is a really interesting point because I certainly went on that journey of like this really hubristic view of, well, you can't have a World Cup then because that's when the Premier League is really hotting up to, well, well, that matters to me,

but that's not, that doesn't necessarily mean the World Cup should always be in June and July, right?

That is a really Western view that

I think I've kind of changed my opinion on.

When you say that, Max, by the way, that's not correct because the European leagues are not the only ones which are affected by a World Cup in winter.

It's also the case in South America, it's the case in Central America, it's the case in Asia.

It is not a Eurocentric problematic.

And if you you talk to Fifth Pro, they will tell you that it has huge health impact on the players, which we actually are seeing this season.

And so we can,

there is an element of which it is the sense of entitlement, which is you're not going to force the Premier League to stop for three weeks or four weeks or five weeks.

What's that about?

There's this element, but there's another element, which is that it's absolutely crazy to have moved the World Cup to winter.

It created huge problems and it's going to be the same thing in 2034.

sure more so than just i want to watch brentford versus crystal palace anyway look i that'll do for part two um we'll look at uh 2034 2026 and beyond in just a second

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Welcome to part three of the Guardian Football Weekly.

Philippe, you wanted to talk about, and we haven't got to it yet, the legacy of, you know, the infrastructure in Qatar, because a lot was made of can you have a World Cup in this tiny place?

It kind of felt like it worked during the tournament, but I don't know what the legacy.

And there was that, you know, football stadium made out of crates that's being shipped to Mexico or something, and everyone was like, This is amazing.

But, like, it's not, and that's part of the problem.

Right, okay.

Carry on.

Now, the problem is that the stadiums which are in place, most of them are now not used.

When it comes, some of them, they will be used in January 2024 because the 2023

Asian Cup, the AFC Asian Cup, which was supposed to

take place in China, has been moved to Qatar and Qatar could only organize it in January, February 2024 because MAX, they took part in the CONCACAF Cup, if you can believe that.

They're going to be used for that, that's good.

But other than that, they're abandoned.

I mean, yes, there is one for the national team.

There is one which apparently is going to be used for the women's national team.

The capacity of some of the arenas is going to be

brought back to 40,000 and be used for the local competitions.

But by and large, they're white elephants.

And as Stadium 974, which is the one I believe you were referring to, the one made of containers, it was supposed to go to Uruguay for the 2030 World Cup.

But since the 2030 World Cup is not going to be in Uruguay, Stadium 974,

apart from one game, Stadium 974, according to

the last words that I read about it, is going to stay in Qatar for longer than we thought.

So it's going to stay there, basically, for a while longer than we thought.

Whatever we thought.

I thought it would be a long time myself.

Karim,

what's your sort of view on FIFA

and how they come out of Qatar and

how

the World Cups have been attributed, certainly in 2030 and 2034?

I've long been a believer that FIFA operates as a mafia,

quite a legal and well-resourced and well-funded mafia.

And that continues to really be the case here.

And I think the way we saw the 2030 and 2034 World Cup hosting situation play out really goes to show you the extent of how much they're willing to play ball with authoritarian regimes and not just play ball, but actually hand them what they want on a golden platter.

That was what's really remarkable here.

When I think back, and I mean,

the granting of the 2022 World Cup hosting rights in 2010, that was sort of before my time as a journalist, but I still remember that moment in the coverage in the media and sort of the uproar that took place at the time.

Where's the uproar over Saudi Arabia?

Where's the uproar over 2034?

There hasn't been nothing in the slightest.

And that's in part because of FIFA.

FIFA is partially responsible for sort of smoothing this over and keeping it quiet enough that really nobody seems to be concerned anymore.

I think we've reached the point where nobody's expecting anything better from Gianni Infantino.

I mean, just look at the nonsense he seems to say throughout the year.

What was he saying during the Women's World Cup just a few months ago when he was telling these incredible female athletes to, you know, you can just grab more rights if you want to, you know, just tell us men what to do, break down those doors.

I mean,

the man is absolutely ridiculous, but he's also very dangerous.

And he seems to give you this sort of cuddly impression and jokes and, you you know gets away with sort of these wonky headlines that come out but behind all that is somebody who's making deals with some of the most awful people in the world and just completely normalizing it it feels like they're so unaccountable that actually and i saw that i saw that and it's a different story that seferin wants to change the rules for uefa so he can have another term in power and i mean i think that you know i wouldn't compare the two that often but like there's no there's no feasible way for fifa to change right i mean even just the idea of just waiting for Infantino to, you know, get out of the way out of the way for whoever's coming next.

That wasn't there once upon a time where we thought Sepp Bladder was the worst thing to ever happen to FIFA?

And now I'm hearing people say, well, we wish for those days to come back now, given what we've seen from Infantino.

So I don't think it's a matter of who is in charge or who is president.

I think the rot is all the way into the core of this organization.

And changing one man or one face doesn't really change it in any way.

In terms of what can be done, I'll give it to you from various perspectives, and I still don't know what can really be said with regards to, say, government regulations.

I really don't know how you can properly regulate this international entity.

That's been a major concern over the past few years, right?

Let's take this from another perspective.

What can fans really do?

Apply pressure to an extent, but are you going to apply pressure to FIFA itself?

Are you going to apply pressure on certain countries, on certain topics?

We've seen some fan groups actually do very well.

I'm thinking primarily of Newcastle United Against Sports Washing.

They have been quite interesting with their approach to

activism, let's say,

and raising awareness about Saudi sportswashing.

They've actually hosted...

Twitter panels and they've actually hosted live panels where they brought human rights activists from Saudi Arabia to speak and to educate and to raise awareness.

That's, I think, the best step that we can do going forward.

And I know it's what I do and what I think about as a journalist all the time, covering sports from a human rights and political perspective is educating my audience and raising awareness.

I've come to believe that at this stage right now with the sort of the Sisyphilian feat that seems to be in front of us right now that that's kind of sort of the best I can expect from fans.

We shouldn't forget the role that our own member associations play in propping up the Infantino regime.

by the way.

I think they get away with a lot.

The only one which has had the courage to stand up to Infantino is Lisa Klavnes,

the president of the Norwegian FA, and who are the only person who had the guts as well to speak in Qatar and speak at the Congress

and to say things that should be said.

The problem is that she's alone and that we can indirectly

fans as fans and actors in football, if we can reclaim power within our own member association, then we can exert pressure.

Because at the moment there is absolutely none.

FIFA is just a hollow entity, which is made up by 211 associations.

If they wanted to get rid of Infantinu today, they could do it, but they won't, because it's in your interest that the mafia stays in place.

I want to finish on something that we have touched on, but I'm just really conscious that I feel it's really, really important that,

you know, we did these specials about Qatar, and we didn't do them about Russia.

And I think a lot of journalists sort of regret how we covered the World Cup in Russia before that happened.

But I don't know if we are going to do a, you know, the social issues of Germany.

And so it's all relative right before the euros um we don't really do

you know political stuff about the british government when we're talking about the premier league you know we're a football podcast there are other podcasts that do that as you said kari people come to us for an escape we do these specials because we think they're important but you know actually

our listening figures for these specials are a little bit lower than when we just talk about you know man united getting done by bournemouth you know are we going to do a pod on abortion rights before 2026 Is that what this podcast should be doing?

Because we were doing podcasts about human rights in Qatar.

And, you know, and that's part of that sort of fear that you are just kind of this, these are our values.

This is what we believe in.

Here's another country.

It's quite often an Arab country.

You know, like we're sportswatching, we're talking a lot about Saudi Arabia, a lot about Qatar.

You know, are we...

Are we doing the right thing?

You know, that are just really conscious that that is something that we've been

criticized for.

And I think there's some legitimate questions.

We haven't touched Israel-Palestine on this podcast and about what football should be doing.

It's a very difficult subject to cover.

So, like, are we inconsistent?

And is that a problem, Karim?

I think, unfortunately, yes, we are inconsistent.

Mainstream media, in particular, in the Western world, is very inconsistent, and the coverage seems to have leaned very heavily towards countries where it does appear to be easy to criticize because they're at a distance, rather than the, say, our own countries and judging, say, The Guardian, judging, you know, the United Kingdom a lot more severely, or at least, let's say with the same with the same coverage that was given to Qatar listen right after the World Cup I actually did a piece for the Guardian and it was called the Qatar World Cup should be a watershed moment for sports journalism and really what I what I aimed to say in that piece was that it was vital that journalists continue to apply this critical lens that we learned to use in the Qatar World Cup when tournaments go elsewhere right like we've got the World Cup coming to Canada, Mexico and the United States.

And I know I touched upon this, but Canada has its own issues in the country, actually with migrant workers as well.

And on top of that, it's got continuous issues being revealed with its relations with its indigenous population, right?

So Canada is not an innocent country whatsoever.

As a matter of fact, it sort of gets overshadowed a lot by the United States, but should heavily be criticized, as a matter of fact.

And I believe the same applies for the United States.

There are countless issues we can continue to list off.

And who knows who's going to be president in 2026, right?

We could be talking about a World Cup with Donald Trump as president.

And are we going to be as critical?

Are we going to cover it the same way?

I most certainly hope so because

our reputations are at stake here, I would say.

If we want people to continuously

listen to us and accept the information that's coming from us, we cannot be perceived as hypocrites here.

And unfortunately, if we don't approach the upcoming tournaments around the world, that I'm talking, including the Olympics in Paris next year, right?

All these events have to be approached with a critical lens or we risk our own reputations.

FIFA has a human rights charter as well.

So we can actually look at the countries which are going to host the 2026 World Cup and see how they fit against this human rights charter.

What we have to do, I mean, you know, Karim will do it, I hope and think we will do it, but it has to go also for different media.

Listen, Chaps, thanks so much for coming on.

Some difficult questions and some very good answers.

And I think we've learned a lot and I appreciate your time.

Kareem, especially for staying up now until 10 past four in the morning.

That is, you've done a great service and we appreciate it.

Oh, it was a real pleasure, guys.

This, you know, a long time listener of the show.

So, you know, it's a real honor to be here for the first time.

It won't be the last.

Thank you.

Thank you, Philib, as always.

Thank you, Max.

Football Weekly is produced by Joel Grove.

Our executive producer is Daniel Stevens.

This is The Guardian.