A mixed legacy? The Qatar World Cup one year on ft Stephen Cockburn

What has been the impact of the Qatar World Cup? Has the tournament been a success for the organisers, and what is its legacy in terms of human and particularly labour rights?  A year to the day after Lionel Messi's Argentina raised the trophy, co-hosts Guy and Francesco take a look at the reasons behind Qatar bidding for the World Cup and the immediate and long-term consequences of winning the hosting rights. As well as looking at the political and economic effects following the World Cup, they also talk to Stephen Cockburn of Amnesty International. Stephen provides insight regarding whether the migrant workers who built the infrastructure for the tournament have received justice and how the Qatar World Cup may contribute to more explicit reference and action on human rights at future sporting mega-events.

Transcript

A mixed legacy?  The Qatar World Cup one year on ft Stephen Cockburn

Francesco Belcastro 00:08
 Hello and welcome to a special episode of FootPol, the podcast where football meets politics. I'm Dr. Francesco Belcastro and here with me is my co -host Dr. Guy Burton. 
 
 

Guy Burton 00:16
 Hi, how you doing Francesco's? Good to see you again. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:19
 I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm feeling the festive spirit now. 
 
 

Guy Burton 00:22
 Yeah, it's not far away, is it?  
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:24
 Nah, it's a week isn't it? 
 
 

Guy Burton 00:25
 Yeah, exactly. So what are we talking about today, Francesco? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:30
 Today it's a special episode because today marks the one year from the final of the World Cup, doesn't it? 18th of December 2022 Argentina won its third World Cup. We're going to be talking about sort of the follow -ups of the World Cup from a political point of view. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:48
 We're going to have a little chat ourselves. So compared to other episodes, listeners are going to get a bit more of our views, I think. I've worked a bit on these from the point of view of sport and politics. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 00:58
 You've worked on these from the point of view of international relations with the Middle East. So we'll say a few things ourselves. And then we've got a guest, Stephen Cockburn, from Amnesty International. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 01:11
 So we thought it was very, very important to address the issue of human rights and the implications of that. It's been such an important part of the political discussion around the World Cup. And it seems like I've been forgotten about it, haven't I? 
 
 

Guy Burton 01:24
 Yeah. But I think what we wanted to do in doing this kind of... We wanted to do this episode to look at what's happened since the World Cup. So there's obviously the immediate aftermath of the World Cup, what's happened in the last year since the Messi raised the trophy. 
 
 

Guy Burton 01:39
 But also, try to contextualize it a little bit more and talk about what this means for Qatar itself and where the World Cup fits into Qatar's plans for itself and for its future development. So there is both the short term perspective that we wanted to look at as well as a much more long -term one. 
 
 

Guy Burton 01:58
 And I think we've asked Stephen to come in to talk about the issue of labor rights and the challenges that migrants face because of course that got a lot of, and quite justifiably, a lot of attention in the lead -up to the World Cup. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 02:10
 Yeah, I think it's very important to contextualize that. There's been a lot of discussion about this. And I think the first thing to say is that when the World Cup was attributed to Qatar in 2010, this was a massive surprise. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 02:22
 Qatar, for all of its expensive and rich foreign policy, as you probably explained later, is a small state, is by far the smallest state that has hosted an event of this magnitude. And where uncertainties and discussions in the face that led to the attribution of the World Cup to Qatar, for listeners that don't remember, this was decided in 2010 - 2009, 2010, it was the period in which the different national committees prepared their applications to FIFA. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 02:58
 It was the previous system which was, let's say, a bit less transparent than the one that FIFA legally has now. And it was quite controversial. The attribution to Russia and to Qatar was a surprise to many. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 03:12
 At least a few months before, it looked like England and the US were sort of solid favorites. But also after that, we now know that there were not only allegations but proofs of corruption that led to the attribution of the World Cups and several people have ended up in jail. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 03:35
 This is led, I think, from the point of view of FIFA, to the rethinking of the way that the system has worked. And we won't go into how it works now, perhaps we'll do it in another episode, but let's just say that the political implications were massive. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 03:48
 I mean, listeners might remember the sort of involvement of President Sarkozy and the alleged deal with Qatar that involved them and stained the reputation of then -UEFA president Michel Platini. 
 
 

Guy Burton 04:03
 So there was all of that. And so they had the World Cup. And then of course, I think one thing that surprised the Qataris was the amount of scrutiny and attention that they got. And I think Stephen's going to talk about this in terms of the need of the country to massively build all the stadium that was going to be required for this, as well as all the other infrastructure that's associated with it. 
 
 

Guy Burton 04:24
 We will talk about that later on in the show. But also to just to put into context, part of the reason that Qatar was going for the World Cup at the time was because, as you've said, it was a small state in a quite volatile region in the Middle East, sort of hemmed in by a bunch of quite prominent regional powers like Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran on the other. 
 
 

Guy Burton 04:47
 And Qatar is quite unique in trying to not align itself with one side or the other to try and adopt a middle course and independent path. And it's been trying to build its profile internationally over the last few decades, most notably, for example, as an economic actor around the region and also as a peace mediator. 
 
 

Guy Burton 05:08
 So you've seen them trying to broker peace deals in places like Lebanon and Palestine in the past, even most recently during the current Israel Hamas War. And so that has kind of raised Qatar's profile. 
 
 

Guy Burton 05:21
 But of course, one of the other things it was wanting to do at the time as well was to develop itself economically, to diversify its economy. One of the big challenges that Qatar faces, like all the other Arab Gulf States in that part of the world, is that it is heavily dependent on hydrocarbons. 
 
 

Guy Burton 05:40
 In the case of Qatar, gas. And it's made the country incredibly rich. For the 300 ,000 or so Qatari nationals that live there, they have a massive per capita income, one of the highest in the world. Of course, 300 ,000 is not the only number of people who live there. 
 
 

Guy Burton 05:57
 There's one and a half million other migrants who live there who do a lot of the business and working in construction as well as services and all sorts. But Qatar's economy was very much based on gas and gas wealth. 
 
 

Guy Burton 06:13
 And so one of the big challenges for Qatar was to try and diversify its economy away, particularly as we're in the context of trying to move away from hydrocarbons, from fossil fuels to alternative, more renewable sources of energy. 
 
 

Guy Burton 06:24
 So in a way, the World Cup sits in Qatar's vision of what it wants to do in the future, because it wants to explore different projects to invest in its development and infrastructure at home to be able to move. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 06:38
 Guy, would you... Can I ask you, would you say that this is consistent with this foreign policy you described? Or is it sort of a step further? Is it a qualitatively kind of something and quantitatively something bigger compared to what you described? Were you surprised when Qatar got the World Cup? 
 
 

Guy Burton 06:57
 I think we were all surprised, but at the same time, I mean, certainly I think there was surprise in the sense of how a small country like this could get the World Cup. But at the same time, remember, you know, FIFA had been on a particular trajectory, you know, starting with Joao Havelange as the FIFA president in 1974, and then his chosen successor Sepp Blatter in - from 1998. 
 
 

Guy Burton 07:20
 And they had an agenda which was to bring football out from the established superpowers of Europe and Latin America to make it a global game. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 07:29
 When you say chosen, you mean chosen by Blatter himself, right? 
 
 

Guy Burton 07:31
 Well, I mean, he was, he was supported by Havelange.
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 07:35
 He was, sorry, so Blatter was backed... 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 07:36
 Yeah, I'm joking. 
 
 

Guy Burton 07:36
 Yeah, Blatter was backed by Havelange, and he basically took a lot of, you know, the Havelange support and Havelange retired in 98. But yeah, they had a project which was very much about globalizing the game. 
 
 

Guy Burton 07:48
 And part of that was also taking the World Cup to different parts of the world. Hence why you have, you know, the first Asian World Cup in Japan and Korea, right? In 2002. Also, the first World Cup in Africa, in South Africa in 2010. 
 
 

Guy Burton 08:02
 So there was a lot of... 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 08:03
 Absolutely, but I would say that probably when these sort of global agenda emerged and we're talking about like from the 70s on was right No, many people had in mind that the first Middle Eastern country would would be well to have a work I would be Qatar and no, I don't know Egypt or Iran or Turkey or Morocco... 
 
 

Guy Burton 08:19
 Yeah, you'd have thought it would probably be one of those. So yeah, Qatar was quite a surprise in that respect. You and I, we both study the politics and international relations of the Middle East. And so we're very aware of how dynamic and active the Gulf states, the Arab Gulf states have been over the last couple of decades. 
 
 

Guy Burton 08:35
 And also international relations is changing, right? There has been obviously in the past, particularly if you're looking at it from the perspective of the West of being in Europe or Washington, you tend to see this part of the world as either aligning with you or not aligning with you. 
 
 

Guy Burton 08:51
 What we seem to miss is that actually these are very dynamic actors with their own particular interests and agendas. And they've been pursuing that quite actively. So that's kind of where Qatar was in 2010. 
 
 

Guy Burton 09:05
 And this, of course, predates of the Arab Spring, the uprisings that sort of swept the region from the beginning of 2011 onwards. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 09:15
 Yeah, it's probably worth noting that these drives towards getting the World Cup perhaps started in the case of Qatar in the mid -2000s, right? In 2010 it's kind of the end or the results of getting the World Cup. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 09:29
 I think you're right, you kind of have to contextualize it within these sort of broader trends. 
 
 

Guy Burton 09:35
 Exactly. Because then of course the decade after Qatar gets the World Cup and the lead up to the World Cup is, you know, the region is overwhelmed by the popular uprisings that take place from Tunisia, you know, and Egypt through to Bahrain and rich results and some wars in Syria and Yemen. 
 
 

Guy Burton 09:52
 And one of the interesting things is Qatar becomes quite a dynamic foreign policy actor in that part during that period, very actively involved in trying to exert influence in places like Syria, but also taking a line that's very distinct from other Arab Gulf states. 
 
 

Guy Burton 10:09
 So it's much more sympathetic to Islamist actors, for example, like Hamas and in Palestine, then say, for example, the Saudis or the UAE are. And so what you see in round 2017 is, you know, well, actually it starts in 2014, but 2017 is quite significant because you have an extended blockade between the Saudis and the UAE on one side backed by Egypt, against Qatar, claiming that Qatar is a bit of a rogue state, you know, and then it should sort of come to heel as it were. 
 
 

Guy Burton 10:39
 And so what you have is, you know, economic activity, which I mean, if you look at Qatar's economic growth, you know, after 2010, it just explodes. But then it starts to plateaued around 2017. And that blockade, which also requires the Qataris to redirect investments and public monies into self -sufficiency and resilience at home, obviously moves funds away from some of the, well, I mean, they still have the money for the construction. 
 
 

Guy Burton 11:11
 But obviously the focus then becomes on sort of trying to sustain itself during this blockade, which lasts for four years. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 11:17
 Okay, so let's fast forward to the World Cup. Let's talk about 2022. 
 
 

Guy Burton 11:22
 Now, I was just going to say, so obviously that blockade comes to an end before the World Cup. But what's interesting in those four years where you have those tensions between the Saudis and the UAE on one side and Qatar on the other, you do have FIFA trying to present itself as a potential mediator between the two, even suggesting that Qatar might want to share the World Cup. 
 
 

Guy Burton 11:41
 Which does not get down very well. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 11:44
 That doesn't go down well, but it is quite big in the newspapers a couple of years before the World Cup. You're absolutely right. So fast forward to 2022, the World Cup itself, from a political analysis point of view, is very interesting. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 11:57
 There's a lot of things going on. There is the sort of, should we call it political theater of leaders going towards matches and everyone is checking whether the Emir of Qatar is sitting with his counterparts, with the Royal Family. 
 
 

Guy Burton 12:13
 that Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, is also present and they make, there's a big, you know, sort of play made of him and the, and the Emir of Qatar, you know, shaking hands and sort of everything is now peaceful between the two. 
 
 

Guy Burton 12:25
 Yeah. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 12:25
 And that is, I've written a bit about that. There is also the whole performance of sort of the kind of Palestinian cause and the Moroccan team that's fascinating. I don't know whether we probably don't have time for that today, but listeners might remember the issue of Moroccan players showing their support for the Palestinian cause, which is in itself obviously something that at some level must have been negotiated. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 12:50
 A with policymakers back in Morocco, but also at some level there must be an understanding of what it's allowed and what it's not. We also see flags in the stands, don't we, with fans expressing support for the Palestinian cause. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 13:09
 So there's all this aspect there, which I think makes the World Cup itself fascinating. But I was wondering, so one year on, can we conclude whether from a political point of view Qatar has been successful in its goals with the World Cup? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 13:27
 Could we start by saying what the goals were maybe? I'll kind of start with a sort of political one and then we go to the economic ones. 
 
 

Guy Burton 13:36
 So as I said, I mean, it's important to see the World Cup as part of this bigger development project, which is to diversify the Qatari economy to move it away from a reliance on hydrocarbons. And in that respect, what the World Cup has achieved was the opportunity to build a lot of infrastructure, right? 
 
 

Guy Burton 13:54
 And not just the stadia, but also, you know, sort of, you know, more hotels, more transport links, I believe there's also, there's a sort of a sort of a subway metro system or, you know, sort of overland... 
 
 

Guy Burton 14:07
 So you've, you've, you now have kind of a more so connected up city as it were. So that is all now in place. And so that is ready for, you know, further development, you know, to try and encourage and persuade, you know, foreign business to come and invest. 
 
 

Guy Burton 14:22
 From a long term perspective, the Qatari leadership is quite comfortable and quite happy. Of course, if you look at what happened economically in the aftermath of, of, of the World Cup, obviously there was big boom in the year leading up to the World Cup, things that the economic situation then plateaued around then. 
 
 

Guy Burton 14:40
 And so you have the IMF, for example, talk about Qatar's economy now returning to normal in the current over the last year, since the World Cup finished. You know, obviously some of the Qatari sources have emphasized the fact that, you know, since 2010, the economy has grown, depending on whether you use current or constant figures, it's grown by either two and a half times or one and a half times. 
 
 

Guy Burton 15:03
 It is notable and sizable. But as I point out, pointed out, a lot of that boom was actually in the period prior to 2017 in the blockade. So what you really have is, yes, Qatar is set up economically for further, you know, further business activity that it wants to try and attract. 
 
 

Guy Burton 15:19
 It also has the infrastructure and the stadia in place, if it wants to go down the path of further, you know, sports activities. So it is looking potentially to getting the Olympics in 2036. It's going to be hosting, you know, the Asian Cup in January 2024. 
 
 

Guy Burton 15:36
 It's got the planning the Asian Games, which is obviously sort of the Asian version of the Olympics, you know, later in, you know, sort of later by 2030. So it is well placed to be able to do all of that. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 15:50
 Certainly, I would say if you organize an event like this and if you invest your political capital into getting an event like that, with all of these sort of consequences that this can have in terms of attention towards your country, you don't do it only for economic reasons. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 16:06
 You certainly do it for, it's a political investment as well. And on that front, it seems to me that perhaps, well, first of all, one year perhaps is not enough to exactly understand to what extent this has been positive. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 16:19
 But this is perhaps more anecdotal than scientific, but it seems to me that the success of the Qatar World Cup from the point of view of sort of PR, of soft power, has been perceived in different ways in different parts of the world. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 16:35
 So in parts of the Western world, it seems to me that, for a lot of reasons, some of them legitimate, Steve will talk later about the issue of human rights, of labor rights in particular, which I feel very strongly about. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 16:48
 And that perhaps have kind of tarnished to a certain extent the legacy of the Qatar World Cup, certainly in my eyes. And for other reasons, which perhaps are less legitimate, a sort of the kind of pride that we mentioned before of some European and Western countries, that has perhaps put the Qatar World Cup in a certain negative light with part of the Western public opinion, and has not been the case, it seems to me, in other parts of the world, both of us have for professional and personal reasons contacts in the Middle East. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 17:26
 And it seems to me that at least at sort of supporters level, there's still a lot of pride associated with having a World Cup in the Middle East and in Qatar. And that in a way has been something that transcended the typical classical political alignments in the region. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 17:45
 And to me, from the point of view of soft power, that's exactly what you want to get, right? You kind of you increase your status, your prestige by hosting something like that. And I think it's something that perhaps often analysts in the West underestimate that kind of impact, the kind of soft power that soft power, excuse me, that now Qatar has within the region. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 18:06
 So I think one should ask, we should ask ourselves, well, who exactly they had in mind, you know, who was kind of the, where did they want to exercise this soft power? To me, when you're when you're going to have this kind of event at a global level, you're kind of thinking about everyone, right? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 18:22
 You want to be a player at global level, but you're also thinking about your region and your neighborhood. So in that sense, it seems to me that particularly within a sort of Middle East context, from a soft power point of view, the World Cup has been a success. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 18:36
 The issue in the West is a bit more complex and perhaps we can address it as well later after we have spoken to them. 
 
 

Guy Burton 18:45
 Can I also just add to that? I think obviously you are talking about sort of the regional perspective and sort of the regional reaction to it. But I think there's also a domestic dimension here as well, which is that, you know, when you think about Qatar and its neighbors, Qatar is actually one of the most, you know, stable and homogenous polities in that part in the Arabian Peninsula. 
 
 

Guy Burton 19:07
 Yeah, I mean, when you look at places like Bahrain, for example, which are very much split between Sunni and between sort of a Sunni leadership in a Shia population, you don't have that in Qatar. The people and the leadership are very much one and the same. 
 
 

Guy Burton 19:23
 Qatar was never really affected by the uprisings and the political instability that happened in the Arab uprisings in the decade after 2011. So when Qatar bid for and won the World Cup and then underwent the process of preparing for it and then facing the leadership, never faced any challenges from below. 
 
 

Guy Burton 19:47
 In that sense, I guess, what's the consequences of the World Cup for politics within Qatar? Probably very little, actually. I think, you know, there's a long term, I think the leadership has managed to play this quite well. 
 
 

Guy Burton 20:01
 You know, the public, the, you know, the Qatari public might have been a little bit irritated and frustrated by, you know, foreigners, you know, descending on their, on their, on their island, on their home, you know, during the course of the World Cup. 
 
 

Guy Burton 20:13
 But I think it's a small price to pay. But there was, there's never been any demands for changes in terms of the political system, which is a very, which is a very much... 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 20:22
 You're right in that it is a small price to pay and I think it also, it's kind of a short term versus long term right in five years time. No one will remember that they were stuck in traffic. 
 
 

Guy Burton 20:31
 But let's not forget that, you know, Qatar is like most of the countries in that part of the world is a monarchy, and it's also a monarchy where there's very little, well, there's no democracy really. And that hasn't changed. 
 
 

Guy Burton 20:42
 There's been no sort of demand or, you know, from beloved to change the political system to make it more democratic. But that was never the intention either of the leadership as it went into bidding for the World Cup. 
 
 

Guy Burton 20:54
 So in that sense, I guess a bit of a success. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 20:56
 Well, what would you say from the point of view of the monarchy? If anything, it's a way of strengthening its position of kind of emphasizing its own prestige domestically. 
 
 

Guy Burton 21:08
 Yeah, I don't think the monotony is going to get judged on whether it was able to carry off a one -month party like the World Cup. It's going to be judged on whether it can manage this longer -term transition away from a reliance on gas to alternative economic activity, and one which maintains the high level of income and living standards that Qataris have come to expect. 
 
 

Guy Burton 21:33
 That is a challenge, of course, but that's another question for the further down the track, because of course the big challenge is that Qatar's economic diversification is predicated on its gas wealth. 
 
 

Guy Burton 21:47
 So the question is whether it can successfully shift transition into alternative forms of economic activity that are not reliant on gas wealth. I talked a little bit about the domestic side, the sort of domestic political situation. 
 
 

Guy Burton 22:03
 You also talked about sort of the regional dimension, the regional reaction. I think there's also something else to be said in terms of the political and regional aspects, which is, of course, something that got a lot of coverage at the time of the World Cup, which was about LGBT rights. 
 
 

Guy Burton 22:19
 If you recall, many of the European teams that were intending their captains to wear the armbands, some of the supporters wanted to make a, to promote LGBT issues and concerns during the World Cup. And what's interesting is that this got very little short, very little shrift at the time. 
 
 

Guy Burton 22:37
 Okay, it was, it didn't go down very well domestically. I think there was a sense in Qatar that, you know, who are these people coming over and telling us how we should live our lives. And so I think in that sense, the intention, well -meaning as it might have been by the European teams, didn't really get the result it wanted. 
 
 

Guy Burton 22:58
 And actually, there's been very little consequence to LGBT issues in the year since the World Cup. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 23:06
 Yeah, I think this really leads us to the next segment of our podcast. 
 
 

Guy Burton 23:11
 Yes, so joining us today to talk about the issue of workers and migrant rights in Qatar during the World Cup, well before, during and after, we're very lucky to have been joined by Stephen Cockburn, who is the Deputy Director and Head of Economic and Social Justice at Amnesty International. 
 
 

Guy Burton 23:28
 Now, Stephen's brief is pretty broad. He covers a wide range of things to do with workers' rights and education, but of course that also includes the sporting brief, so under which the World Cup, the Olympics and others are continued. 
 
 

Guy Burton 23:41
 So Stephen, thank you for joining us. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 23:42
 No, it's a real pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. 
 
 

Guy Burton 23:44
 We've been looking at the legacy and the impact of the World Cup in Qatar and more generally, both regionally and globally. 
 
 

Guy Burton 23:53
 And so one of the things that we felt it was really important to do is to talk about workers' rights and our analysis wouldn't be complete if we didn't include that. And of course, you and Amnesty International have worked extensively on that issue. 
 
 

Guy Burton 24:05
 So I wondered whether you could sort of just remind the viewers some of the concerns around those topics. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 24:11
 Yeah, sure. So it's worth thinking back to 2010 when the World Cup was first awarded to Qatar by FIFA. And Qatar, like other countries in the Gulf, operated a system called the kafala system, sponsorship system, whereby workers were tied to their employers. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 24:27
 They weren't allowed to leave the country without their employer giving permission. They weren't allowed to change jobs without their employer's permission. And there was very low wages are low. And that sort of dependency on on an employer put workers in a very vulnerable position where very often they're exploited. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 24:46
 Often wages not paid, often made to work in dangerous conditions to the point that many a very difficult number that's ever difficult to estimate. Number of people died during during construction of World Cup infrastructure and another infrastructure in the country. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 25:03
 So there was really widespread exploitation amongst the migrant worker force in Qatar. Qatar is a country where 95% of the population are non -Qatari or migrant workers who come into service, different parts of the country. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 25:18
 And so such a huge project such as the World Cup carried enormous risks to their welfare, which we saw realized. And Amnesty and trade unions and other other organizations were raising these issues throughout and calling on Qatar to introduce reforms to protect workers. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 25:35
 And also I'm calling on FIFA to do the same to make sure that their tournament was not contributing to human rights abuses. What we saw, I guess, over the decade or 12 years in the run up to the World Cup, we saw about six or seven years where Qatar and FIFA basically ignored the question, denied there was a problem, you know, and we were fighting for attention. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 25:57
 And then from 2017 onwards, FIFA introduced a new human rights policy on the back of a load of scandals that people remember. Qatar also finally it was there was a complaint at the International Labour Organization against Qatar about forced labor. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 26:15
 And Qatar finally agreed to introduce a series of labor reforms in the country in partnership with the International Labour Organization. And then what we saw the years after that was a series of new laws brought in, positive laws, laws that Amnesty would broadly support. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 26:33
 Sometimes we would say they need to be stronger, but largely a positive development in Qatar's labor system that I think did improve lives for many workers. But never went quite far enough. And ultimately, the biggest problem we've seen is not really implemented and not enforced in the country. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 26:51
 So although there are now much better laws on the statute books, as we got to the World Cup, we were still documenting widespread violations of abuses, whether that's security guards, construction workers, cleaners, domestic workers, actually really, really especially in the country, because there'd been a lot of attention on passing laws, but not enough attention in terms of enforcing them and making sure they were real for workers. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 27:15
 You mentioned this idea as well of pressure on Qatar to implement better policies. What would you say has been the key to the relative success that organizations have had on putting pressure on Qatar? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 27:33
 What, on reflection, what could have been done differently that would have improved things? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 27:38
 So I think one of the factors that allowed some progress I think was the spotlight of the World Cup itself. I think if we had been trying to push labour reforms in Qatar without that, I don't think we would have had the same traction, the same tension, the same levers. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 27:57
 Now hosting the World Cup there didn't mean that that happened automatically by any means and sometimes you might hear FIFA claim that or it's the fact that it allowed space for trade unions, organisations like I'm to see organisations like the ILO to try and engage and push things. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 28:13
 That was very important. I think it was also important that the Qataris themselves were open and engaged and I think that there's credits, there is absolute credit to be given there. We could go and meet and discuss and exchange with the Qatari authorities in a way that we don't really have the space or permission to do in other countries in the region and in other places in the world and that allowed an environment where there was an openness to reform and I think there is within the country as well, there is a reforming class, there is a group of people who want to do reform who are looking at changing the nature of Qatari society in certain ways with certain limitations and etc but I think that there was something that people could work with in that. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 28:58
 There's also a huge external factor in the fact that the geopolitically, you know, a lot of these breakthroughs also coincided with the fact that the Qatar was being blockaded by its neighbors. That's huge, I think that really unlocked a lot of things in some ways because it meant that Qatar was of course needing allies, it needed to open out to the world. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 29:22
 Obviously part of the hosting a World Cup was about Qatar opening out to the world as well, anyways, that strategy as with Al Jazeera or other things that Qatar invested in but I think that did mean that there was a willingness to work with international organisations to be open and they saw the strategic value in doing so. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 29:46
 So I think that really played it. It's hard to know what would have happened without that but that was I think certainly an enabling factor. You know and I think from our side, you know, we were always fairly relentless in trying to expose what was happening but also to try and, and I mean always look at it like this but we always try to do it in our work, we'd always try and recognise some of the progress that was happening as well and I think that's quite important and I'm sure people in Qatar say we didn't do that enough and that's a debate that can happen and but we would always try and say this law is brought in, it's very important, there are now you know a few hundred thousand workers who are getting a slightly higher minimum wage but we still see this problem of large numbers of people having their wages stolen without remedy and having that balance, that balance I think was helpful even if I think people do contest how balanced certain things were. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 30:39
 Would you say that this could perhaps represent the model for future tournaments? Because obviously we're going to have of major tournaments, including World Cups that don't have necessarily the best record amongst, in terms of some of the issues that we mentioned. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 30:54
 Can we perhaps say something like what happened with Qatar? Can we be optimistic about the sort of power of pressure around major tournaments, you'd say? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 31:04
 I'm not sure I would say model, but I think there are a lot of things to learn. And I think there are a lot of things that we can extract from it that we really should learn for future tournaments. Now, one of the lessons I think from Qatar was that the human rights questions were never tackled at the start when the competition was awarded. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 31:23
 So FIFA does this huge evaluations of the different bids. It looks at loads of details in terms of legislation, risks for different areas. But I read it in detail and you cannot find the word "human rights". 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 31:36
 You cannot find the word "worker" in there. They talk about heat risks for referees and FIFA officials. Very important, but not about the workers who are actually building the stadiums. And it just wasn't just wasn't featured in the thinking at the time. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 31:51
 And I think a major learning. And I think this is actually something that FIFA have started to do is about making these doing assessments of human rights risks. The very start building that into the bidding processes. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 32:04
 Now, that has to have some teeth and that has to have some content. But the fact is that you can have those conversations where we actually have to have those conversations for the start. So if we're thinking about future tournaments, whether that is in Spain, Portugal, Morocco, whether it's in Saudi Arabia, then we should be looking at those risks at the start and making plans to mitigate them. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 32:23
 Now. There's no guarantee that that will. Prevent major human rights violations. And we know when I think the other lesson from from Qatar is that and not just Qatar, other other major tournaments is when sovereign states have major interests and they're linked to strategic interest or whether they're linked to domestic politics. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 32:46
 They tend to trump any leverage or influence that a sports body has. But there is an opening. There is something you can do. And I think there is something we could learn. In a case of Saudi Arabia, for example, we need to be talking right now. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 33:00
 Whilst the official bidding process is still underway. It's only one bid, but the process is still underway. We need to know what is your plan for workers rights? Are you going to be doing a reform program with the ILO like Qatar did? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 33:14
 How are you going to stop people dying, building stadiums in the desert? What is the plan? And if you don't have a plan, then if you do have a plan, that could be a good thing. That could be an entry point and leave it to change things in Saudi Arabia. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 33:26
 If you don't have a plan, then FIFA needs to think really seriously whether it should award the World Cup, because otherwise we'll see the same mistakes. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 33:33
 Guy, you wanted to ask something on the, on the, maybe the reparations. 
 
 

Guy Burton 33:37
 Yes, so one of the things that was said at the time as Qatar was building preparing for it was that it was going to make some kind of gesture in terms of reparations towards some of the families of the workers that suffered and passed. 
 
 

Guy Burton 33:52
 Do we know any more about the details as to what happened there? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 33:59
 So this question is about compensation for workers and remedy fund for workers was something that, you know, Amnesty really pushed on very hard over the last two years. Alongside football associations, sponsors, players unions, players themselves, we had a petition signed by more than a million people around the world falling for compensation. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 34:23
 The basic idea was that there have been human rights abuses, hundreds of thousands of workers involved in the tournament face different types of abuses, whether that's recruitment fees, lost salaries, or in some cases deaths. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 34:34
 And the tournament earned FIFA seven and a half billion dollars over the buildup to the tournament. We were basically saying that a slice of that should be put towards remedy for those compensation. We actually never got a commitment from Qatar that they would compensate. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 34:50
 They always kind of use roundabout language. There is a compensation fund in Qatar that's been set up over the last few years, very much focused on lost salaries of workers already in the country, doesn't really apply historically to those who've already left, which is with a large majority of people affected. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 35:06
 So they've used that often as a kind of way that we're doing this, but actually doesn't really touch on the bigger issue. FIFA also, they kind of dodged this for a while, but in March at their Congress, they agreed to launch a study, an independent study on what sort of remedy should be provided and whether FIFA's process has already covered that or not. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 35:30
 That report has been, is actually due now. So actually we're due to find out by anytime soon really, and that was by the end of this year or the start of next year, that that will be a report that will be published. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 35:44
 But then it will be up to, specifically to the FIFA Human Rights sub-committee, but ultimately it will be the decision for the FIFA leadership about whether they implement the findings, about whether they implement the recommendations. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 35:57
 We don't know what's in that. We've contributed it, we've given our view. We hope, of course, that it recommends some remedy for workers. And if it does recommend that, then of course, we would expect that FIFA follows up on that. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 36:12
 But we don't quite know, but we should know of it in the near future. 
 
 

Guy Burton 36:18
 I mean, we've talked quite a bit about sort of the legacy in terms of human rights and this seems to now be sort of penciled into FIFA's thinking, at least for future events, I suppose. What would be your impression in terms of other sports? 
 
 

Guy Burton 36:31
 Do you think that the World Cup in Qatar has had sort of a knock on effect in terms of thinking about human rights, you know, for other sporting associations and tournaments like the Olympics? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 36:45
 Yeah. And actually I just want to say, the phrase you use there - it's been penciled in for FIFA is quite good - because it's technically part of their policies. But actually, I think the challenge we see is when those policies and principles comes up to choices that are more about power and about money and about politics within the organization, that's when these things can fall down. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 37:05
 And I guess we'll see, but I think we'll see that actually really over the next year in the bidding processes. In terms of other sporting, I think others have learned. And I think, I mean, interestingly, FIFA was the first major sports body to come up with the human rights policy and has been quite an innovator in these areas. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 37:22
 And I think they were forced to do so because of the challenges they faced and the scandals they faced. Since then, others are starting to follow suit. So the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, published a human rights strategy and human rights framework last year. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 37:38
 And just in October, included human rights as part of the Olympic Charter. Now, those are important symbolic things and provide frameworks for the IOC to move to move forward on human rights in a way that it's often historically stood back from it. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 37:53
 And it's seen sport as quite autonomous and its own values, its own value set. So I think that's quite an important, important step. Again, the question remains, how is it going to be implemented in practice? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 38:06
 How is it going to be implemented when the French, French Olympic athletes are banned from wearing a hijab in the Olympic Games next year, which is a reality right now. What will the Olympic Committee do? Is that against their principles of non -discrimination? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 38:19
 How will they act? How will the IOC act when it's selecting the host of the 2036 Olympic Games? And that's a process that's going on at the moment. The front runner is Gujarat in India, held at the President Modi Stadium. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 38:34
 Could be a fantastic thing, but huge risks around evictions and many of the things that we've seen when major sporting events have been held in India before or major political events too. And that question has to be front and centre. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 38:51
 India should have a right to bid for a major tournament, but how is it going to, how will IOC engage with India when it's doing so? So I think that's there. UEFA have also come out with statements recently. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 39:07
 Other sports parties have as well. But ultimately, I think it's easy to make statements. One also is easy, but it's easy enough to make statements. It's easy enough to develop policies that proof comes when it implements. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 39:20
 And when those policies are hard to implement, because maybe that means making less money, or maybe that means compromising on something else. Hopefully it shouldn't be that. Hopefully it should be win -win, but I think it's a test when it becomes harder. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 39:35
 Can I just ask one thing? For listeners, I might want to read a bit more and get a bit more information on this. Amnesty has produced some reports on these issues. And are they available on Amnesty's website? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 39:48
 How could people access them? 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 39:50
 Yeah, so... Maybe around the World Cup, probably the most comprehensive report to read is called Predictable and Preventable. And then we published that, I think it was April or May last year. But if you go to our website and you look at Qatar, for example, just type it in the search, you will find lots of reports on Qatar World Cup. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 40:10
 You will find other things as well. There are other places to find good resources as well. We're a coalition member of what's called the Sport and Rights Alliance, which is a coalition of Amnesty Human Rights Watch, International Trade Union Confederation, World Players Association, Football Supporters Europe, Committee Protecting Journalists, and also a survivors group called the Army of Survivors. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 40:32
 And you can see some of the different organizations are doing there. And also maybe mentioned the Centre for Sport and Human Rights, which is a multi -stakeholder body of which Amnesty is part. And they produce lots of resources on guidance on how to do, how to integrate human rights into mega sport events. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 40:51
 And there's a wealth of materials there as well. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 40:55
 That's great. Thank you very much. Thank you. 
 
 

Guy Burton 40:58
 Thank you so much Stephen, really appreciate that and hopefully we can have you come back. Okay, 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 41:02
 Great. Well.. Will do.
 
 

Guy Burton 41:02
 Take care. Bye. Have a good rest of the day. Bye. 
 
 

Stephen Cockburn 41:04
 Cheers now. Bye bye.
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 41:04
 That's been really, really fascinating and I think really any account of the World Cup in Qatar cannot really avoid to engage with these issues of human rights and labor rights in particular. So I think we've learned a lot there. 
 
 

Guy Burton 41:16
 Yeah, but I think also what it's shown is that you're absolutely right and human rights and labor rights, workers rights, very much took, was high profile, you know, in the lead up to the World Cup, quite rightly. 
 
 

Guy Burton 41:29
 But I think it also, you know, maybe sometimes overlooked what else was going on and what why. And I think we just, we touched upon this, you know, at the start of the episode in which we talked about, you know, what was Qatar trying to get out of the World Cup in the first place, right? 
 
 

Guy Burton 41:43
 The bigger picture of politics and economics for the leadership and for and for the country. And so, as I keep coming back to the point, I think they were quite surprised by the level of, you know, and the intensity of attention, attention and scrutiny that they got over the issue of workers rights. 
 
 

Guy Burton 42:02
 But I think it's also great in the sense that it has, it did shine a light and maybe we're going to start seeing, you know, these thoughts and efforts made towards dealing with this in the future for future tournaments, including, you know, in the region. 
 
 

Guy Burton 42:17
 I mean, obviously Saudi Arabia is most likely to get it. But it may also also have sort of repercussions sort of wider in the region as well because the kafala system that Stephen was talking about is not unique to Qatar, it exists elsewhere too. 
 
 

Guy Burton 42:31
 Now, I think we want to just say, what are we doing now, Francesco? Are we taking a break because this is, it's the week before Christmas, isn't it? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 42:40
 I feel like we really need to take a break, but I think we'll continue and we'll have another episode next week. Yes, we feel like I should go and holiday. 
 
 

Guy Burton 42:46
 Well, we should go on holiday, but we are determined to keep this show on the road, aren't we? So what are we talking about next week? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 42:54
 We've got a super episode next week. It's a Pele special with Ana Paula da Silva because on the 29th of December, it's one year since the death of Pele. So we have Ana Paula da Silva from Federal Fluminense University in Rio de Janeiro. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 43:08
 So she's gonna come and talk about race, football, and particularly the case of Pele and the symbolism around Pele in the Brazilian society. So it's gonna be a very interesting one. I think one of the listeners will definitely, definitely enjoy it. 
 
 

Guy Burton 43:22
 And it's going out on Christmas Day, isn't it? So if for anyone who needs a break from, you know, the holiday time season and wants to get away from their family for about half an hour, then listen to us. We'll be coming out on Christmas Day on next Monday, right? 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 43:39
 Yeah. 
 
 

Guy Burton 43:40
 Now, last things we need to say as well as as usual, for listeners who've made it this far, if you liked what you heard, please can you give us a like or a review on whichever podcast platform you use. 
 
 

Guy Burton 43:52
 If you could share and subscribe to future episodes and, you know, share that with your friends, that would be fantastic as well. You can also reach out to us and contact us through the various social media platforms that we're on, including Facebook, Twitter/X, Blue Sky and Instagram. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 44:08
 All right. Well, thank you very much. 
 
 

Guy Burton 44:10
 Yes, Francesco. So see you next week then. Take care. 
 
 

Francesco Belcastro 44:12
 Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye. 
 
 

Guy Burton 44:14
 Bye.