As a 16-year-old in high school obsessed with football, or rather soccer, one of my biggest enemies was the then-president of FIFA, Sepp Blatter.
Not many people would assume that a 16-year-old kid’s worst enemy would be the president of the international football association, but that’s because many don’t realize how awful FIFA officials are.
On Dec. 2, 2010, the trajectory of the organization changed forever with the electing body choosing Russia and Qatar for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups respectively, according to a Nov. 23 video by Vox News.
The latter would send the world of football into a firestorm as Qatar was always seen as a highly unlikely place for the tournament to be hosted.
In its own objective review for the decision in choosing Qatar as the host country, FIFA found that it was not only unsuitable, but dangerous for the country to host, according to a “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” sSegment on the 2022 World Cup.
The competition is normally held in the summer, and the first concern to many was how high the temperatures get in the capital of Doha, with temperatures rising up to 113 degrees fahrenheit, according to the Weather Atlas.
At one point, I remember Qatar and FIFA officials saying they would build air-conditioned stadiums so players could comfortably play without worrying about the heat, but that was also deemed logically impossible.
From there, FIFA decided to host the World Cup in November, marking the first time the tournament would be hosted in the winter, disrupting regular club football seasons for most countries participating.
The other factor that made the decision logically inexplicable was Qatar’s infrastructure, which lacked the stadiums and hotels needed to fit the thousands of fans that usually travel to a country for the World Cup, according to the “Last Week Tonight” segment.
So why Qatar? The answer’s bribery.
FIFA officials who are a part of the electoral board, which chooses host countries, are notoriously known for taking kickbacks in favor of certain nations, according to the Vox News video.
In its history, 24 officials, made up of leaders of each confederation and other officials, plus FIFA’s president formed the executive committee, or ExCo, that would lead and control FIFA and its finances.
FIFA’s congress would normally choose the nation that would host the world’s largest football tournament.
The executive committee has the power to distribute FIFA’s profits to fund building of new stadiums, youth programs and holding tournaments.
There is absolutely no accountability in this process and it is very easy for FIFA officials to get kickbacks from countries, developing corrupt practices to retain power.
In 1964, FIFA decided to take away the vote from congress, handing it over to ExCo.
That process made FIFA all the more corrupt, because now, countries only needed to win the 13 votes from 24 officials that were easily swayed, rather than a whole congress of votes.
FIFA officials love to say that football isn’t political, that it is a sport that brings the world together and we should leave our differences aside when it comes to the “beautiful game,” but that is far from the truth.
Where capitalism lies, so does politics.
Power and money rule the world of football and it's how a country including Qatar was able to be picked as a host for this year’s World Cup.
Three FIFA officials were found to have taken $1 million in exchange for their votes to Qatar, according to a Dec. 5, 2019 New York Times article.
Bribing officials is the hidden aspect of how a host nation is chosen. Many countries also create a public bid, making promises of building new stadiums, lucrative TV-rights offers, building hotels and a public relations campaign of proportions no one would be able to fathom.
So when it comes to Qatar being chosen, it’s no surprise that the nation was able to pull off buying their rights to host the World Cup.
But where the hypocrisy lies in the stories criticizing Qatar for bribing FIFA officials, is that it is not the only country to do so.
Journalists revealed Germany bribed ExCo for the rights to host the 2006 World Cup. It had become the first publicly reported incident of a bribe like this, according to a Oct. 16, 2015 Time Magazine article.
Western nations also participate clandestinely in actions that will get them what they want when it comes to FIFA.
FIFA only cares about money and retaining its power and status in football. It has never cared for the game itself.
Nations including Qatar, which used thousands of migrant workers to build infrastructure for the World Cup, were found to have multiple human rights violations against workers in the country.
Qatar saw a 13.2% rise in its population as workers flocked to the nation to find work, passports were taken away, and little to no pay was given to people building stadiums, hotels and even new airports.
In a Feb. 23, 2021 investigative piece by The Guardian, more than 6,500 workers from countries including India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh died since Qatar was chosen to host the World Cup.
From there, thousands of workers were evicted from their apartment blocks in Doha prior to the start of the tournament, according to an Oct. 29 Reuters article.
With the many denials from Qatari officials about the deaths of how many workers have died in the nation, officials finally “acknowledged” 400 -500 workers died in preparation for the World Cup.
While news outlets have touched on how Qatar banned alcohol in stadiums because the country follows Sharia law in Islam, to me, that is fully insignificant in the grander scheme of things.
Other controversies include the lack of LGBTQ+ rights in the country, with homosexuality being illegal and people found to be part of the community is punishable with a fine and up to seven years in prison, according to a Nov. 18 NPR article.
European team captains were not allowed to wear armbands promoting diversity because of fears of being retaliated against by tournament officials, according to a Nov. 21 NPR article.
Qatar is not the only corrupt nation that has fought for a bid in the World Cup and they won’t be the last. It has only brought to light the full scale of corruption in which FIFA participates.
The bid sparked multiple investigations into FIFA and even had my former worst enemy, Sepp Blatter, banned from holding any office in FIFA until 2026, according to a March 24, 2021 BBC News article.
Blatter is 86 years old, which means that effectively ends any power he had in the organization.
The new president, Gianni Infantino, said in a news conference that European nations should be apologizing for the thousands of years of imperialism and mistakes Europe has made, according to a Nov. 20 CNN article.
He also said, embarrassingly, "Today, I feel Qatari. Today, I feel Arab. Today, I feel African. Today, I feel gay. Today, I feel [like] a migrant worker.”
Many things can be true at once and I find it incredibly ironic that a white European man who leads one of the most corrupt organizations in the world has now found himself to be the moral arbitrator of human rights discussions regarding certain nations.
Everything about Qatar hosting the world cup is hypocritical, but that comes from the fact FIFA and the West is hypocritical.
The World Cup has become a tool of corruption and power that runs solely around the amount of money a nation has to gain through the glory of a bid.
