No sport on Earth is more popular than soccer — football, as the rest of the world calls it. And with the possible exception of the Olympic Games, no international sporting event is bigger than the sport’s World Cup.
The tournament opens Sunday in the unlikely venue of Qatar, a Persian Gulf desert kingdom with no soccer team, no international sports tradition but massive amounts of money derived from oil.
FIFA, the sport’s governing body, awarded Qatar this year’s tournament in 2010. The decision broadly was condemned around the world due to Qatar’s poor human rights record and the location itself. Temperatures in Qatar routinely are in the 120-degree range.
Since 2010, Qatar has spent about $220 billion on the enterprise. It has constructed eight stadiums, seven resort hotels, an entire metro light rail system, hundreds of miles of highways and other infrastructure integral to the event.
The government also has purchased the French club Paris Saint-Germain and populated it with some of the most expensive stars in the game, including Brazil’s Neymar, Argentina’s Lionel Messi and France’s Kylian Mbappe.
Human rights organizations have accused Qatar of severe treatment of workers. Since the World Cup award, about 6,500 foreign workers have died on Qatari construction projects of all kinds.
About 85% of the kingdom’s 3 million residents are foreign workers, mostly from poor African and Asian nations.
FIFA says that Qatar has carried out promised significant reforms in foreign labor policies and other human rights matters. But the organization, along with the International Olympic Committee, should make those standards prerequisites for consideration.
— Republican & Herald, Pottsville via TNS
