Sepp Blatter and FIFA Corruption

[Fulham Broadway 16,843]

Workers deaths and World Cup bribes-CBS Sports

http://www.cbssports.com/general/writer/gregg-doyel/24578542/qatar-world-cup-corruption-worker-deaths-a-criminal-combination

[hjperdeath 2,226]

you are attempting to defend the indefensible and are on the brink of racism or religious bigotry . suggest you rationalise the

situation .

There is nothing that is indefensible. Only indefensible if there is concrete proof against it. Which as of now there isn't. Far from racism or religious bigotry. More like I'm the one protecting a country's "race" and religious beliefs when someone else has tried to get behind it.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Yes, giving other's a chance and standing for what you believe in and against those who think they're better than other's just because they're a tad bit bigger.

So the defence is that people are picking on your country because it's small yet has the highest GDP per capita in the world? Tiny bit silly.

17 years old yet inversely proportionate IQ's. Funny old world.

Gynophobia? Outdone yourself there.

Don't really feel the need to get in a slagging match with a boy over the internet. If you think you're smarter than me than you're quite free to think that. Let's face it, it's not the only thing you'd be burying your head in the sand about.

FIFA is a corrupt organisation and everyone knows it, but they outdid themselves this time. Personally I couldn't give two shits because the World Cup really isn't high on my list of priorities but it's sad that this competition which does celebrate some of the best sporting and humanitarian principles is going down this route. I have nothing against Qatar but I think you're going to end up revealing a few of your less 'accepting' traits as you continue to defend what is fairly indefensible.

Most of us are old enough and worldly enough to know exactly where your comments about 'letting our wives and daughters run around in tiny skirts' come from.

The fact that you use the word 'let' is massively revealing of your beliefs. How would I not 'let' my wife wear what she wanted? That's her choice to make, her FREEDOM as not just a woman, but a human being with exactly the same rights that I have. Here's a tip - don't 'let' a woman hear you say that because it might be a while before you see an ankle again.

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Just one hole(out of 7 atleast) dug in the ground using a machine and apparently thousands are dying in World Cup sites which haven't even started. Great analogy media.

[hjperdeath 2,226]

So the defence is that people are picking on your country because it's small yet has the highest GDP per capita in the world? Tiny bit silly.

Not my country. Far from it. Highest GDP doesn't exactly mean that the countries big. It's slightly bigger than Connecticut.

Don't really feel the need to get in a slagging match with a boy over the internet. If you think you're smarter than me than you're quite free to think that. Let's face it, it's not the only thing you'd be burying your head in the sand about. FIFA is a corrupt organisation and everyone knows it, but they outdid themselves this time. Personally I couldn't give two shits because the World Cup really isn't high on my list of priorities but it's sad that this competition which does celebrate some of the best sporting and humanitarian principles is going down this route. I have nothing against Qatar but I think you're going to end up revealing a few of your less 'accepting' traits as you continue to defend what is fairly indefensible. Most of us are old enough and worldly enough to know exactly where your comments about 'letting our wives and daughters run around in tiny skirts' come from. The fact that you use the word 'let' is massively revealing of your beliefs. How would I not 'let' my wife wear what she wanted? That's her choice to make, her FREEDOM as not just a woman, but a human being with exactly the same rights that I have. Here's a tip - don't 'let' a woman hear you say that because it might be a while before you see an ankle again. (thread to be closed for your protection by a certain mod in 5....4...3...2...)

I don't need to think anything. You brought it up. Don't do it next time, then you won't get a reply back.

I didn't say anything about me hating women or not letting her wear what she wants to. I'm against people going against a country that's truly does believe in it's religion. If you're going to someone's place you respect it. It isn't yours. If you don't want to, then go there. Good job in twisting words and making me look like the President of "I hate women fan club" .But then again, English media, so I can see the relation.

Oh don't worry, they don't need to protect you.

[Liquidator 5,176]

White people crying racism

i don't get it? What's funny about it?

[zolayes 14,489]

i don't get it? What's funny about it?

because only whites can be racist ,,, btw The Europeans didn't invent the Slave Trade

[LukakutoStamford 779]

The problem is that FIFA defied logic in awarding Qatar the world Cup. Blater himself even admitted that FIFA ignored the heat issues. That's what created alot of the contraversy with Qatar winning the 2022 World Cup bid. It's not an illogical conclusion to suggest that something may have been awry when a country who has record 50 degree celsius tempartures an minimal soccer infastructures is awarded a WC. The other problem is that this isn't the first allegation of corruption/bribery when it comes to FIFA.

I liked the Qatar persentation and I wouldn't mind a WC there, but not if we're going to have players and fans collapsing from heat exhaustion.

[The only place to be 11,313]

Not my country. Far from it. Highest GDP doesn't exactly mean that the countries big. It's slightly bigger than Connecticut.

I don't need to think anything. You brought it up. Don't do it next time, then you won't get a reply back.

I didn't say anything about me hating women or not letting her wear what she wants to. I'm against people going against a country that's truly does believe in it's religion. If you're going to someone's place you respect it. It isn't yours. If you don't want to, then go there. Good job in twisting words and making me look like the President of "I hate women fan club" .But then again, English media, so I can see the relation.

Oh don't worry, they don't need to protect you.

I didn't twist your words. You're the one who of men 'letting' their wives wear certain types of clothing.

Start dating a few women and use that type of thinking - see how far that gets you.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

Boys, play nicely or I'm locking this thread.

Careful....you might see some skin.

I'm sure you can argue your point without insulting entire cultures..

[hjperdeath 2,226]

I didn't twist your words. You're the one who of men 'letting' their wives wear certain types of clothing.

Start dating a few women and use that type of thinking - see how far that gets you.

In a certain country. Sentences and paragraphs are meant to be read completely.

Thanks for the concern, but I have and yes been quite lucky and gone quite far.

[Fulham Broadway 16,843]

Its the deaths around building the World Cup infrastucture that are staggering; I dont think they are all making it up

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/18/qatar-world-cup-india-migrant-worker-deaths

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117818/qatar-2022-world-cup-pace-kill-4000-migrant-workers-says-espn

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/herald-view/shameful-human-cost-of-the-qatar-world-cup.24357378

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/qatar-to-amend-labour-laws-after-deaths-in-world-cup-building-projects-1.1795575

https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/world-cup-report-accuses-qatar-working-1-200-082104729--sow.html

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Thankfully I get to see how it really rather than depending on words written across the globe. Keep trying Britain and America. :tophat:

[Fulham Broadway 16,843]

Australian, German, Dutch, French, media and Al Jazeera have also covered it.

To my mind, never mind the corruption the mindless deaths are completely sufficient to deny qatar the WC. But life is cheap I suppose under capitalism

Qatar is accused of working 1,200 people to death in its £39billion building bonanza for the 2022 World Cup.

An investigation by the Mirror into the oil-rich Emirate revealed horrific and deadly exploitation of migrant workers, who are forced to live in squalor, drink salt water and get paid just 57p an hour.

Campaigners fear the death toll could reach 4,000 before the Finals kick off. One worker told us: “We are treated like slaves and our deaths are cheap.”

FIFA faces renewed pressure to show Qatar a World Cup red card following the exposure of mass deaths and vile exploitation of construction workers in the region.

A team of British trade union leaders and MPs warned that the 2022 tournament is being built “on the blood and misery of an army of slave labour”, after uncovering appalling abuse during a visit to the Gulf monarchy.

Qatar is accused of working 1,200 migrants to death since being awarded the World Cup in 2010 and campaigners have insisted the shocking death toll could reach 4,000 before a ball is even kicked in the Finals.

BBC

Squalid: Workers in Qatar

On a mission organised by Geneva-based Building and Woodworkers’ International, a global federation of construction unions, I witnessed and heard distressing evidence of systematic mistreatment on an industrial scale. Sneaking into squalid labour camp slums under the cover of darkness, frightened workers lured to Qatar with false promises of high salaries complained of persecution.

One Nepalese carpenter, paid the equivalent of just 95p an hour, said: “We’re treated like slaves. They don’t see us as human and our deaths are cheap. They have our passports so we cannot go home. We are trapped.”

Huge natural gas deposits fuel a £39billion building bonanza with the World Cup set to be the crowning glory of the desert nation’s development dash.

But the award of the tournament is wreathed in accusations of corruption and fears footballers will collapse in temperatures hitting as high as 50C in the summer. This led to calls that the Finals should be moved to winter but when one FIFA official hinted at this , the footballing body moved quickly to quash the rumour.

For the neglected migrant workers, the scorching heat is just one of the crippling conditions they battle day in day out. Their pleas for midday breaks away from the blazing sun are widely ignored.

The Mirror investigation uncovered poor safety conditions resulting in high death rates. Workers, from countries like India and Nepal, are paid as little as 57p an hour – sometimes these wages go unpaid for months. They are physically beaten and have their passports confiscated by gangmasters.

In one camp in downtown Doha, the capital, I saw nine workers crammed into a tiny, cockroach-infested room. Just a few miles away I later watched the elite of Qatar – the richest country per head on earth – pull up outside a Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Ferraris and Rolls-Royces.

In the sprawling Al Khor labour camp about 35 miles North of Doha the workers, who asked not to be named, said they were herded onto buses for two-hour journeys to work.

In what is known as China Camp, the migrants – who have to use disgusting communal toilets – said they were also forced to drink salty water.

Steve Murphy, general secretary of Britain’s Ucatt construction union, told me: “I could cry for these lads. I’ll never forget what I saw in the labour camps.

“The RSPCA would be on to you if you kept dogs in the conditions these workers are forced to endure. They live in squalor and risk being killed or maimed at work. This slaughter will continue unless conditions improve and they are allowed freedom of association.”

Under the feudal kafala system of control operated in Qatar the imported 1.2 million migrant workers are effectively bonded labour, unable to leave jobs or the Emirate without permission of employers. Trade unions are banned while laws are routinely flouted.

PRAKASH MATHEMA/AFP/Getty Images

Speaking out: Nepalese former migrant worker Purna Bahadur Budathoki

And as work begins on the 12 World Cup stadiums, between 500,000 and one million more migrants could be flown into the region. The Qataris are sensitive to international criticism and during a meeting with the BWI delegation, the head of the Qatari committee overseeing the World Cup hit back at criticism.

I was told Hassan Abdullah Al Thawadi, Secretary General of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, informed the group: “We don’t want people to think we’re an evil country because we’re not.”

The high-ranking official, who lived in Scunthorpe and was educated at Sheffield university, rejected calls for migrant workers to join trade unions.

Getty Images

Gruelling: A worker uses a wheelbarrow to move cinder blocks on a construction site

Fresh proposals on improving conditions are due soon but major doubts persist about whether they will be enforced. Ucatt chair Neil Vernon was taken to a model camp housing 105 migrants working on the Al Wakrah stadium. With two to a room and cafeterias, he said: “It couldn’t be more different from the disgusting labour camps I saw. If every worker was accommodated like this, there wouldn’t be a problem.”

FIFA initially tried to wash its hands of abuse in Qatar but President Sepp Blatter is growing increasingly nervous. Next month he is sending lawyer Dr Theo Zwanzieger there as the clamour grows for the 2022 World Cup be held in another country.

Two Labour MPs on the mission will raise the mistreatment in Parliament. Chris Williamson, MP for Derby North and a former bricklayer, declared: “I was sickened by what I saw. FIFA is under a moral obligation to press the Qatari authorities to end the exploitation.”

Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn added: “How could you enjoy watching a game of football when you know the tournament was built on the blood and misery of an army of slave labour?”

The wealth

Qatar is the richest country in the world thanks to oil and gas. With a population of 2.1 million, it has an average income of £60,612 per person, compared with £21,970 in the UK.

But more than 90% of workers are low-paid immi­grants, nearly half from Nepal. Most riches are pocketed by a ruling elite, headed by the Emir.

Qatar’s reserves of oil and natural gas are world’s third biggest and account for more than 70% of government revenue. The state invests around the globe and in London it owns Harrods and The Shard.

It is illegal to criticise the Emir, who rules as an absolute monarch. He funds rebel forces in Syria while the Qatari airforce flew with the RAF to help topple Colonel Gaddafi in Libya.

The lies

The Nepalese labour attache in Doha has revealed how the Qatari elite brush aside the appalling death figures.

Indra Dev Pandev, whose poor Himalayan nation provides a large chunk of the labour force, said that last year a total of 195 Nepalese workers died in the Gulf state, bringing the total close to 400 over two years.

Of that 195, a dozen were suicides, 22 were classed as dying on work sites and 38 from road accidents. The main group, 123, were “heart attacks”, very unlikely for such young men.

Mr Pandev says there are no postmortems and when a worker is judged to have died from natural causes, no compensation is paid. They are literally worked to death and their families left penniless.

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Sadly they didn't make an effort of making another documentary, 3 months later of how the situation is now. Why would they when it would go against their cause?

[Belgiannutt 3,201]

Thankfully I get to see how it really rather than depending on words written across the globe. Keep trying Britain and America. :tophat:

Sadly they didn't make an effort of making another documentary, 3 months later of how the situation is now. Why would they when it would go against their cause?

Delusional...

[hjperdeath 2,226]

Delusional...

My eyes don't lie. I look out the window, two World Cup sites, not even joking. No one's working, just a big hole. But the media says blood flows near it, so it must be true...

[We Hate Scouse 10,286]

Sadly they didn't make an effort of making another documentary, 3 months later of how the situation is now. Why would they when it would go against their cause?

What difference does it make if they've "changed". Doesn't bring back those needless deaths.