Activists protested against the World Cup, which starts Sunday in Qatar, and called for a boycott during a demonstration outside the Qatar Embassy in Paris on Nov. 15, 2022.
Francois Mori/AP
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Francois Mori/AP
After years of outcry over the human rights abuses against migrant workers during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a FIFA-commissioned report concluded that FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, “has a responsibility” to compensate those who suffered.
Billions of people watched the World Cup in Qatar, where Argentina’s soccer team triumphed and Lionel Messi claimed his first World Cup title. But the competition was also marred by allegations of mistreatment and exploitation — including wage theft and thousands of unexplained worker deaths.
Some of those concerns were addressed in an independent study made public on Friday night. The report was commissioned by FIFA’s subcommittee on human rights and social responsibility and developed by a business and human rights advisory firm, Human Level.
It found that FIFA took “steps to seek to meet its responsibility to respect human rights” but “severe human rights impacts did ultimately occur in Qatar from 2010 through 2022.”
Those consequences included deaths, injuries, unpaid wages for months, and crippling debt for workers and their families, who had to pay back fees related to obtaining jobs in Qatar.
The report said the main responsibility fell on the workers’ direct employers, as well as the Qatari government, but added that “a credible argument can be made that [FIFA] contributed to some of the impacts.”
The study advised FIFA to use its Qatar legacy fund “in full or in part to further strengthen the competition’s legacy for migrant workers.” But there are already questions about how FIFA will follow through.
Two days before the report was released, FIFA announced that the fund — which totals $50 million and was financed by a portion of the World Cup’s revenue — will be dedicated to international development projects in collaboration with the World Health Organization, World Trade Organization and the United Nations’ refugees agency.
On Saturday, a FIFA spokesperson said in a statement that FIFA officials considered all the recommendations in the report, adding: “While all recommendations could not be met, practical and impactful elements were retained. It should be noted that the study did not specifically constitute a legal assessment of the obligation to remedy.”
According to the spokesperson, FIFA viewed the legacy fund as a means to support programs that will help people around the world, adding that a separate Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund was established by Qatari authorities, which has provided over $350 million to workers who experienced late or non-payment of wages.
The report on migrant workers in Qatar comes as FIFA considers Saudi Arabia’s unopposed bid to host the men’s World Cup in 2034. On Friday, FIFA also released an evaluation of the Saudi bid, calling it a “very strong all-round proposition.”
The report also assessed the Saudi Arabia’s human rights risk to be “medium.”
“There is good potential that the tournament could serve as a catalyst for some of the ongoing and future reforms and contribute to positive human rights outcomes for people in Saudi Arabia,” the report said.
A 2021 investigation by The Guardian found that at least 6,500 migrant workers died during the construction of World Cup venues and infrastructure in Qatar — some were ruled as workplace accidents and others were ruled suicides. Workers also endured dangerous heat, poor living conditions, and a visa system that prevented them from leaving the country if they wanted to.
Since the tournament ended, human rights groups have continued to sound the alarm about workers’ mistreatment.
On Saturday, Amnesty International’s Head of Labour Rights and Sport Steve Cockburn said the FIFA report “validates what human rights organisations, trade unions, fans, and now even FIFA’s own human rights sub-committee have been saying – it is time for FIFA to pay up.”
“Unless FIFA finally takes action to compensate workers and Saudi Arabia introduces real human rights reforms, history will repeat itself and workers will again pay the price,” Cockburn added.
