[HN Gopher] An interview that disappeared - FIFA World Cup Qatar...
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An interview that disappeared - FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022
Author : eisa01
Score : 312 points
Date : 2021-12-23 09:29 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (josimarfootball.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (josimarfootball.com)
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| I still can't fathom how Qatar 22 is actually going ahead. The
| worst part is legends such as Beckham and co who are willingly
| endorsing it for $150m+.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| I'm sure we'd all endorse anything if someone gave us a multi-
| million-dollar cheque for posting a few tweets and making a few
| media appearances - and you can do it _guilt-free_ because you
| know that wherever or not you accept the bloodstained money,
| the event is still going to go ahead, so you might as well
| make-bank.
| vhgyu75e6u wrote:
| Except that all this embassadors were already rich before
| Qatar, so yeah, I can judge them for selling out while
| showing up in an ad telling me how beautiful the game is.
| alkonaut wrote:
| I would if I wasn't extremely rich. So it's interesting to
| see how rich people agree to it.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| Naively perhaps, I'd like to believe that someone like
| Beckham who has historically always been the face of great
| causes and events (UNICEF, London 2012, etc) would show some
| balls and actively campaign AGAINST this shit show. But
| instead he has taken the "if you can't beat them without
| trying, get paid obscene amounts of money" route.
|
| I fear that this will become his legacy and right now, I
| think he's ok with that.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > show some balls
|
| I see what you did there
| rapnie wrote:
| > I think he's ok with that.
|
| .. he and his new yacht are likely okay with that.
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-
| celebr...
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| I don't recall David Beckham ever making any particularly
| principled sacrifices though.
| auggierose wrote:
| National teams should just boycott this World Cup. I am certainly
| not watching it, although I love football.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| Teams pulling out would most definitely make a difference. It
| does make you wonder why the players/managers do not get
| together and... strike.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Indeed. If a few high profile teams boycotts it, then the rest
| would follow.
|
| Better yet, if Germany, Italy and a few others offered to host
| a tournament for the qualified teams (with FIFA blessing or
| not) maybe others would join?
|
| This is how the NHL should have treated the Olympic ice hockey
| tournament in China: rather than boycotting they should have
| simply played the games in Taiwan to make a point. Whether they
| would count as Olympic matches would make no difference. The
| kick in the groin to Chinese and Qatari bigwigs would be
| glorious. Millions in bribes wasted .
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| The popular YouTube football channel _Fifo Football_ made a
| video on whether national teams might boycott the World Cup
| 2022:
|
| _Will Countries Boycott The Qatar World Cup?_
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=7KL9LExsPLI
|
| (TL;DR: No)
| sofixa wrote:
| Few national teams and players would dare to boycott it.
| National careers are short with few possibilities for success (
| one of the advantages of a World Cup every two years would be
| that more teams and players could have success), and just
| playing for the national team, let alone at _the_ biggest
| competition in sport there is, is a source of pride.
| lbriner wrote:
| Exactly. Not only that but the chance of an entire team
| agreeing this is the best idea would split the team between
| the yays and nays.
|
| The only thing that would work would be for people not to buy
| tickets and not to watch the matches but sadly that is
| unlikely to happen.
|
| The idea that asking a government or FIFA to do anything is
| laughable, the world cup is far too political for most
| organisations to risk being blacklisted/cancelled/lose
| contracts/lose face whatever
| johnyzee wrote:
| The outrage is hypocrisy. Oh, it's fine for all of our consumer
| goods to be built by de facto slaves, toiling under _much worse_
| conditions than these construction workers, because to protest
| that we would actually have to change our lifestyle, lest we look
| like abject hypocrites. Just install some more suicide nets at
| the Apple plant and don 't worry about it.
| brianoconnor wrote:
| I don't care about football. But what can I suggest to friends
| who really want to see their team playing? What sort of protest
| is possible? Is there anything that hurts FIFA? What about the
| sponsors?
| lpv wrote:
| You can suggest that they write a stern tweet or reddit
| comment, like everyone else who likes to pretend they're
| protesting so they can pat themselves on the back and then
| continue watching the sport.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Most of that money comes from TV fees and sponsorships. In all
| honesty, whether your friends watch or not, at this point, it's
| probably not going to affect anything for 2022. FIFA has
| already secured the TV fees and they already got their
| sponsorship money. I mean, maybe you can suggest they not buy
| the official Adidas world cup ball, if they were even planning
| on buying it...
| fatonR wrote:
| Although it won't happen, I wish some qualified teams would
| withdraw from the competition to take a stand against what is
| happening in Qatar.
| Thlom wrote:
| Fans tried in Norway, but failed. Not that we managed to
| qualify anyway ...
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| " _In August, Amnesty released a report that documented that at
| least 15 000 migrant workers had died since Qatar was awarded the
| World Cup hosting rights in 2010._ "
|
| If these figures are true, then no matter how 'successful' the
| World Cup 2022 turns out, it will always be tainted by these
| shameful figures.
| is_true wrote:
| Amnesty isn't a good source for anything. I've been on the
| other side of an "amnesty digital protest" and boy, they aren't
| very good with facts.
| BigJono wrote:
| Those figures need way more context.
|
| In my country (Australia), there's about 1.05 million people in
| the age group 25-29 (which I assume most migrant workers are
| about, so should be a good baseline proxy), and 800 deaths per
| year in that age range.
|
| By that baseline, Qatar, with it's 2ish million migrant
| workers, should see about 1,600 migrant worker deaths per year
| if everything is normal.
|
| 15,000 over 12 years seems on the low side, if anything. I'd be
| more worried about the 37 deaths they've specifically narrowed
| to employees working on the World Cup. But even then, same
| problem. How many people are working on the World Cup? If it's
| 1,000, then 37 deaths is ridiculous, but if it's 500,000 all
| doing stuff like construction and transport, it could easily be
| close to the safety profile of that work in other countries.
|
| Australia has about 200 workplace deaths per year. 40 per year
| in construction with around 1.1 million employed in the
| industry. Qatar is claiming 20% of it's migrant workforce is in
| construction and 10% of fatalities in that group are from work
| related incidents. That puts them at 62.5 per year per million
| workers. About 50% higher than Australia's construction
| industry. Which isn't great, but it's also not outrageous
| unless Australia is an outlier too (I haven't looked at other
| countries yet).
| alkonaut wrote:
| When reporting says "migrant workers have died", I'm assuming
| that is in workplace accidents alone, and not including any
| natural deaths or other causes such as illness.
|
| This may or may not be the case but if there was free press,
| we'd have the full picture.
| IshKebab wrote:
| A lot of sensational press relies on people making
| assumptions like that. Maybe they aren't tricking us in
| this case, but newspapers definitely do do that sort of
| thing all the time.
| alkonaut wrote:
| When there is no transparency the only thing you can do
| is assume the worst. Accurate reporting is a luxury
| afforded countries with transparency.
| hluska wrote:
| How many reports has Amnesty International written about
| migrant workers in Australia?? Please provide me links to the
| relevant papers.
|
| If you can't do that, stop making this argument. It's
| insulting.
| [deleted]
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| Quoting the Amnesty article:
|
| > Official Qatari statistics show that over 15,021 non-Qataris
| - of all ages and occupations - died between 2010 and 2019
|
| I think it's worth putting the number into context. There's
| 2,300,000 non-Qataris in Qatar. 1,670 deaths per year puts the
| mortality rate at 0.72 per year per 1000 people. That's 10
| times lower than the global mortality rate as of 2020.
| kickling wrote:
| If you look at the work related death rate among workers in
| the US the number is 0.035 per 1000 people. So if the deaths
| are work related, it is a huge number compared to the US at
| least.
|
| [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm]
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| If we assume 100% of deaths over this 9 year period work
| workplace accidents, then yes, this number is alarming.
| However there's just no way that all of those deaths were
| work related. We can't know the true number, since there's
| a lack of trust towards the number provided by the Qatari
| Government. In the U.S. there were 2,854,838 deaths [1].
| The report you linked claims 5,333 of those deaths were
| work-related. That means 0.18% of deaths in the US in 2019
| were not work related.
|
| Now I concede that the U.S. has much better workplace
| safety guidelines, with OSHA and the like, compared to less
| developed nations. So that percentage would surely be much
| higher in Qatar, but how much higher? If we assume that 5%
| of deaths were work related in Qatar, then that 0.72
| overall mortality rate becomes 0.036 per 1000 people, same
| as the US, with its much better workplace safety
| guidelines, while assuming a 29x greater percent of deaths
| being workplace related.
|
| [1]
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr70/nvsr70-08-508.pdf
| hluska wrote:
| Yes, there's no way to know if those deaths are work
| related because Qatar's government, despite its modern
| health care cannot figure out a cause of death for all
| their migrants. It's even harder to know if these deaths
| are work related because Qatar has a verified history of
| arresting journalists and deleting the interviews where
| they try to find out the truth.
|
| Does any of that strike you as a problem?
|
| Or heck, do you ever think that Amnesty International is
| better equipped to make statements than you are?
| juki wrote:
| You're forgetting that those non-Qataris are almost all
| migrant workers, so the population is extremely skewed
| towards relatively healthy 20-50 year old men. Also,
| people aren't just worried about directly work related
| deaths, but about bad living conditions in general.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Qatar
| AvocadoCake wrote:
| It's not reasonable to compare the mortality rate of working
| people to the global average across ages, disabilities, etc.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It looks like modern slavery. Labor rights nonexistent. Many
| of the dead are denied autopsy or a real explanation of their
| death, leading to possibilities of covering up the true cause
| of death. Given other factors, that's an extremely serious
| problem. See link [1].
|
| Pragmatically (and very generously, in the situation)
| speaking, with no "positive feedback loop", no oversight, how
| can societies improve? Investigate the deaths and find ways
| improve the situation.
|
| I'm not saying it's exactly like slavery, but with no
| transparency I don't want to be part of rationalising it and
| letting it pass unnoticed as if we didn't see it.
|
| [1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/qatar-
| failure...
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| The Kafala System that was in use in Qatar until 2016 was
| indeed modern slavery. Workers had their passports taken,
| and couldn't travel or change jobs without explicit
| permission from their employers. Living in Qatar I've
| experience first hand how people were exploited, dealing
| with delayed salaries, sometimes taking on second jobs,
| sending a majority of their income back home every month.
|
| However I would say that things have improved
| significantly, and are continuing to improve. You speak of
| a lack of oversight, but the fact that we're in this thread
| discussing this issue means that there must be some
| oversight. From international bodies to individual
| journalists there's many people concerned about labour
| rights, and these concerns aren't something the Qatari
| government can just ignore, as evidenced by the numerous
| labour reforms.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Probably makes more sense to compare it to Qataris with the
| same ages, if those figures are available.
| hluska wrote:
| And yet another human rights expert who is defending slavery.
| Good thinking.
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| I'm no human rights expert and nor am I trying to defend
| slavery. I'm just combatting the insane about of FUD that
| exists around basically any country in the middle east,
| specially on forums that are comprised of mostly western
| people.
| hluska wrote:
| It's obvious you're not a human rights expert. The thing
| is, the people at Amnesty International are human rights
| experts. They see an obvious problem and you're doing
| gymnastics to convince everyone the problem doesn't
| exist.
|
| That's a problem. You're ignoring actual experts and
| spreading misinformation and now lies.
| justinclift wrote:
| > You're ignoring actual experts and spreading
| misinformation and now lies.
|
| Your responses to the commenter above (across a few
| threads) are sounding hysterical. I'm not sure why. :(
|
| At least _they_ seem to be trying to work out the numbers
| and thing for themselves, and are looking for external
| sources for information to work with.
| Veen wrote:
| If you're going to effectively combat human rights
| violations and modern slavery, it's better to do it with
| facts and accurate statistics, rather than easily refuted
| figures. The Qatari government can make exactly the same
| (reasonable) points that commenters here are--a weak case
| makes it easy for guilty parties to evade responsibility.
|
| Pointing out flaws in critical reports is not "defending
| human rights violations," it's highlighting weaknesses in
| the case, which helps people to make a stronger case.
|
| (Plus, something isn't right and true just because
| Amnesty says it.)
| kingcharles wrote:
| I was one of those slurping down the KoolAid and
| believing all the FUD about the Middle-East. Then I
| started dating a Qatari woman and that helped to balance
| me out. She says the public health system is pretty poor,
| and it seems the migrants do not qualify for it anyway.
| That's a bad start.
|
| People on here are totally misreading the Amnesty report
| though. The report does not say 15,000 immigrants died
| from World Cup construction. It says 15,000 migrants died
| over the period specified (which is a nominal figure),
| but it says that they _do not understand what the cause
| of death was_ because Qatar is either purposefully or
| incompetently diagnosing this. That needs to be fixed.
|
| I don't think Qatar is unique in mistreating its
| immigrant labor. Everywhere I've lived in the West does
| this to some degree, though not as seriously as Qatar was
| doing in the past.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Sound statistics = defending slavery?
| tluyben2 wrote:
| It does not really matter: people will watch and go anyway. A
| few people get upset, a few people might be fined or even
| imprisoned, but that's just the price of 'doing business'.
| Scapegoats are built in and often well compensated. Nothing
| will be tainted.
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| FIFA is full of corruption and connections you might not expect.
| For example, Epstein and intel agency connections:
|
| "In 2002, Junkermann acquired the rights for the 2006 FIFA World
| Cup in Germany with her relatively new company Infront Sports and
| Media. The company was best known at this time for its president
| and chief executive, Philippe Blatter, the nephew of Sepp
| Blatter, the then president of FIFA. This overt corrupt nepotism
| left Junkermann's Infront Sports and Media as the company to
| market the TV rights to future major FIFA tournaments. The
| company went on to acquire the rights to all of FIFA's World
| Cups, and even though this deal was watered down in 2006, in 2011
| FIFA again gave Infront permission to sell the TV rights, in the
| Asian markets, for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
|
| During her time at Infront Sports and Media, Junkermann would be
| caught flying on Jeffrey Epstein's "Lolita Express" on three
| occasions. The first flight recorded, on 22 March 2002, she would
| share with Epstein, Sean Koo, and one other passenger, but it's
| her second trip which really stands out. On Saturday 31 August
| 2002, Jeffrey Epstein and Nicole Junkermann would fly from Paris
| Le Bourget Airport to Birmingham Airport, in the UK, alone. They
| would return to Paris, via the same route, on Monday 2 September
| 2002. For Jeffrey Epstein to fly without any of his normally
| present entourage is very unusual. So what was happening that
| weekend? I've done a lot of research on these dates, but as of
| yet, I do not have any answers.
|
| ...
|
| The link between Nicole Junkermann, the Israeli state
| intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Force is not a
| tenuous one. The ominously named "Reporty Homeland Security" was
| the first incarnation of what has now been rebranded "Carbyne911"
| and is referred to as simply "Carbyne."
|
| One of the directors of Carbyne is Nicole Junkermann. The
| chairman of the board of directors is Ehud Barak, the 10th Prime
| Minister of Israel, the 14th Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense
| Forces, former Minister of Defense and former Head of Military
| Intelligence for Israel. Ehud Barak has had a long history as one
| of the more public faces of Israeli covert operations. Before he
| was Prime Minister, Ehud Barak was a big name in the IDF. Through
| the 1970's, he led many operations including famously disguising
| himself as a woman to kill members of the PLO (Palestinian
| Liberation Organisation). Ehud Barak has already been linked with
| Epstein, and Benjamin Netanyahu has helped to highlight those
| links for his own political gain."
|
| https://unlimitedhangout.com/2019/07/investigative-reports/t...
| ryanlol wrote:
| >The link between Nicole Junkermann, the Israeli state
| intelligence services and the Israeli Defence Force is not a
| tenuous one
|
| >One of the directors of Carbyne is Nicole Junkermann. The
| chairman of the board of directors is Ehud Barak, the 10th
| Prime Minister of Israel
|
| She's a director of a company with a former PM on the board,
| pretty sure this is exactly the kind of a link that normal sane
| people would consider "tenuous".
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Sigh. Yes Epstein is a vile scumbag, but he was also a rich
| asshole who liked networking, I don't think it's fair to
| associate everyone who met with him as a part of his rapey
| ventures.
|
| Opened your link, scrolled to the conclusions. Hah, reads like
| a Q-Anon writing...
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I don't think it's fair to associate everyone who met with
| him as a part of his rapey ventures.
|
| But it's also reasonable to expect a plausible explanation.
| The Prince Andrew scenario comes to mind, and a blanket pass
| should not be given.
| eunos wrote:
| Nah moral outrage is on the Winter Olympics 2022 right now. Hard
| to maintain concurrent moral outrages at the same time.
| FredPret wrote:
| Yeah too many slave labour-fueled projects going on to be upset
| with all of them
| sharken wrote:
| Ain't that the truth. The World Cup is a bigger deal than the
| Winter Olympics, so we can't really do the right thing.
|
| More than 6.000 dead workers due to the World Cup, the event
| should be stopped to avoid more deaths in future events.
|
| But nothing will happen, it's the sad truth of it all.
| eunos wrote:
| Nah I grew disillusioned with atrocity propaganda,
| consequently I'm glad that its potency starts diminishing.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I was wondering what kind of person who would dismiss large
| scale human rights abuses as "atrocity propaganda", and
| holy shit I was not disappointed. You've got to have one of
| the edgiest profiles on this site!
| osivertsson wrote:
| For some background on Qatar see the Amnesty International report
| 2020/2021 on Qatar: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-
| east-and-north-af...
| lordnacho wrote:
| Have to say as a football fan, it's a scandal that they're
| running the world cup in Qatar. A winter world cup pushes the
| schedules way off what's normal and traditional. That is of
| course not the only concern, there's also stories about dozens of
| people dying building these stadiums in the desert heat.
|
| There's also a heck of a lot of stories about how Qatar was able
| to get the world cup in the first place. It seems that FIFA isn't
| exactly free of corruption, which is a shame because they're
| supposed to be in charge of the world's favourite sport. Of
| course there's no accountability in any way, who even knows who
| their national FA rep is? I guess that's one of the perks of
| running a sport with that much history, people will still feel
| compelled to watch.
|
| One thing that's positive is that ordinary people are not
| ignorant about this situation. You'll find in every FB post about
| this there's a load of voices expressing what I've just
| expressed. So whatever the Qataris think they're buying with this
| massive outlay, they're not getting it.
|
| On the sporting side it appears they're making a decent effort of
| building a home grown team that isn't going to totally embarrass
| them, which is quite the challenge.
| andrepd wrote:
| > it's a scandal that they're running the world cup in Qatar. A
| winter world cup pushes the schedules way off what's normal and
| traditional. That is of course not the only concern, there's
| also stories about dozens of people dying building these
| stadiums in the desert heat.
|
| What a paragraph. The death toll is at least in the many
| thousands, perhaps even >10,000.
| eru wrote:
| Sources?
|
| I found eg https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2021/feb/23/r... which tries to count all deaths,
| not just what can be attributed to the football stadiums.
|
| (It's a high death toll in any case. But we should still
| stick to the facts.)
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| lordnacho wrote:
| I said dozens because it seems credible, I didn't look
| anything up. It's somewhat common for construction workers
| to die even in the modern world, but my shock is more that
| it seems worse than most projects (Was it Guardian who had
| the story about people getting so tired they fell asleep
| and fell off the stadium roof?), yet most projects are for
| genuinely useful things like bridges and dams, not
| entertainment.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > I said dozens because it seems credible, I didn't look
| anything up.
|
| So you literally just made up a statistic out of nothing
| and posted it here? Why do you think that's ok?
| a4isms wrote:
| Alan:
|
| Dozens of people died of COVID last year.
|
| Beth:
|
| You forking idiot, millions died, not dozens.
|
| Alan:
|
| Okay, so it's a lot of dozens. What's your problem?
| datavirtue wrote:
| Lol....it's an internet forum, not a referenced work like
| Wikipedia.
| lordnacho wrote:
| There's a big difference between making it up and having
| a hunch from reading a bit, without the specific sources
| to hand. There's nothing wrong with that, you can go and
| do your own research if you want, don't expect me to do
| it for you.
|
| It's pretty laughable for you to suggest that people
| can't just say what they want on the _internet_
| csomar wrote:
| It's not a high death toll (they have 1.5million workers of
| these nationalities). There is no transparent due-process
| for the identification of the death cause or the
| investigation of the working conditions. So these numbers
| don't really translate to much...
| csomar wrote:
| This source claims 6.5k since 2011:
| https://www.theguardian.com/global-
| development/2021/feb/23/r...
|
| That's around ~700 deaths per year. But Qatar has ~1.5million
| workers from India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. So,
| ~700/year is not an outrageous number for natural deaths
| (works out around 0.04%). This is way lower than the death
| rate in the USA for a young age segment (25-40):
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/241572/death-rate-by-
| age...
|
| Qatar is hurting more by not allowing an independent and
| transparent journalism around the conditions and deaths of
| these workers. Just shows the idiocy at the top level of
| their government.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| This analysis is assuming all 1.5M peop,e were working on
| World Cup stuff.
| csomar wrote:
| The source is not limited to the World Cup though, but
| all workers.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Of course transparency in reporting should be the first
| prerequisite for arranging a World Cup. And unless we have
| free press showing the opposite, we can only assume the
| death toll to be higher than reported.
| [deleted]
| mcv wrote:
| Yeah, I'm far more concerned about the apparent slavery of
| migrant workers in Qatar than about how it affects some
| schedules.
| HamburgerEmoji wrote:
| unnouinceput wrote:
| Quote: "It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption"
|
| This is THE understatement of the year, if such a race would be
| held your comment would win by a mile.
|
| Allow me to make the point more clear. If a race would be held
| for the overstatement of the year, the comment "FIFA's last
| years of its over a century lifespan was the freest of
| corruption" would win by a mile.
| daviddumenil wrote:
| > It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption
|
| John Oliver has made a great summary of FIFA's darker side:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlJEt2KU33I
| the_af wrote:
| > _It seems that FIFA isn 't exactly free of corruption_
|
| That must be the understatement of the century!
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Yes. As a football fan, I have decided to be doing something
| else entirely for the duration of the World Cup. I think the
| underclass that has suffered while building the infrastructure
| deserve some form of recognition.
| smallerfish wrote:
| > dozens
|
| Thousands in the overall construction boom.
|
| https://www.fastcompany.com/90607440/at-least-6500-workers-h...
| rapnie wrote:
| Massacre United. It is utterly shameful and deeply saddening.
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| The number doesn't seem egregious relative to how many
| workers there are. The Josimar article says
|
| > In August, Amnesty released a report that documented that
| at least 15 000 migrant workers had died since Qatar was
| awarded the World Cup hosting rights in 2010.
|
| So, 15000 deaths over 11 years, or 1,363 deaths per year.
| Worth noting that this number does not make a distinction
| between people working in Qatar for the World Cup or just
| anyone working in Qatar.
|
| Wikipedia says 2.3m expats as of 2017[1]. Putting the death
| rate at 0.59 per 1000 people per year (for 2017, the number
| of expats has been increasing since 2010, so the number would
| be higher for 2010, lower for 2021). This would put it at the
| very bottom of countries based on death rate[2]. (It's
| already at the very bottom for death rate, but here we're
| only looking at expats.)
|
| TL;DR The number quoted has very little to do with the number
| of people working on the 2022 World Cup, and isn't really
| alarming.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_mortal
| ity...
| dash2 wrote:
| Here's the original report so people can check for
| themselves:
| https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde22/4614/2021/en/
|
| * The death numbers are as reported by Qatar's own
| statistics agency and Amnesty says there are significant
| problems with them.
|
| * Migrant workers are working age, not elderly, so
| comparing this to overall death rates is probably
| misleading.
|
| * "69% of deaths of workers from India, Nepal and
| Bangladesh between 2008 and 2019 were attributed to
| 'natural causes' or 'cardiac arrest', and contained no
| information about the underlying causes of death... experts
| consulted by Amnesty International have said that in a
| well-resourced health system, it should be possible to
| identify the cause of death in all but 1% of cases."
| xvf22 wrote:
| You wonder how many electrocutions are put down as
| 'cardiac arrest'. I mean yes, but not exactly natural.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| Heat stroke and dehydration also leads to cardiac arrest.
| eru wrote:
| Thanks for running some of the numbers.
|
| Conditions for migrant workers in Qatar are certainly not
| pretty, but we need to be careful to stick to the facts, if
| we don't want to bullshit ourselves.
| tda wrote:
| Of course you can't compare general mortality to mortality
| of people in the prime years of their life. I have
| personally seen the circumstances in which Indian men work
| and live in the Middle East and it is not pretty. Whatever
| comes out/is reported officially, the truth is probably a
| lot worse
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| I haven't been able to find death rate statistics for
| people aged 18-30, so I can't really compare the numbers
| with strictly facts. There is an article from the BBC
| from 2015 that claims that the number is in line with
| what would be expected from that age group:
|
| > The point officials are making is that there are about
| half a million Indian workers in Qatar, and about 250
| deaths per year - and this, in their view, is not a cause
| for concern. In fact, Indian government data suggests
| that back home in India you would expect a far higher
| proportion to die each year - not 250, but 1,000 in any
| group of 500,000 25-30-year-old men.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33019838
| wbl wrote:
| These workers are healthier than the people who die. They
| are capable of working after all.
| tda wrote:
| I also don't have any numbers, so I can't comment on or
| how or low these are. But I do know that the
| circumstances in which these men are put to work is are
| more akin to slave labor then anyone can and should
| expect. And the conditions are truly extreme as the heat
| and humidity in the middle east can be enormous. And
| whilst I can't take the heat for more than a few minute
| walking, I see these laborers doing 12 hour shifts of
| hard manual labor every day. So not surprised if more
| than a few have suffered from fatal heat-strokes.
| hluska wrote:
| Some dude on some forum claims 15,000 deaths is fine and
| provides zero useful sources. We're supposed to somehow
| trust your word over that of Amnesty International.
|
| What a poorly thought comment...
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| In the United States, during 2020: << Of the 1,008
| construction worker deaths in 2020, 368 were from falls,
| slips, or trips, 247 were from transportation injuries, 174
| were caused by exposure to harmful substances or
| environments, and 153 were the result of contact with an
| object or equipment. >>
|
| Source: https://www.constructconnect.com/blog/construction-
| worker-de...
|
| Google also tells me by searching << united states
| Construction Workers 2020 >>: << Number of Jobs, 2020:
| 1,514,200 >>
|
| That sounds rougly equivalent in total construction
| workers, but US is about 25% lower in rate of death.
|
| What is more disturbing to me is the treatment of low-skill
| migrant workers in Qatar. It is terrifying, and it strikes
| me as the very definition of a modern slavery economy.
| AndrewStephens wrote:
| > It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption
|
| Is there a Nobel Prize for Understatement? I'll like to make a
| nomination.
| Shadonototra wrote:
| yeah, the F1 can do what ever they want, but not football?
|
| the hypocrisy of the west when it comes to money is what will
| cause it to become extinct within the next century..
|
| too much corruption at every level
|
| also too much politics, what brits are trying to achieve here?
|
| that reminds me of the attempts to kill the UEFA Champions
| League with what ever the US had cooked
| baxtr wrote:
| Qatar has also very close ties to some football clubs, e.g. FC
| Bayern. Fans start taking notice though.
|
| Just a couple of weeks ago, Bayern Munich's annual general
| meeting ended with the club's directors being yelled at for
| refusing to discuss their sponsorship agreement with Qatar.
|
| https://nationworldnews.com/bayern-munichs-agm-ends-in-uproa...
| input_sh wrote:
| Worth noting that German clubs are somewhat unique because
| they're supposed to be owned by the fans[0], not corporations
| (with some exceptions). Fans pay money for the membership to
| have some influence on its operation and vote on some issues.
|
| As one can see from your link, it's definitely less than
| perfect in practice, but that's why the fans are supposed to
| have any say in deals like this instead of the club being
| able to do whatever they want to like in most other
| countries.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50%2B1_rule
| tephra wrote:
| The same is true in Sweden. 51% of a professional team must
| be owned by supporters.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| biztos wrote:
| I listened to a news podcast that covered the meeting[0]
| and it was very interesting to hear the fans chanting "We
| are Bayern, You are not!"
|
| Turns out the club bylaws put sponsorship decisions
| entirely in the hands of the leadership, and this was
| affirmed in court, so there's no way for the fans to cancel
| the Qatar deal without convincing the very people who made
| the deal.
|
| [0]: in German: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/26-11-21-mac
| ht-b-1-1-529-alle...
| tm-guimaraes wrote:
| Doesn't the leadership have terms and need to be
| reelected? At least that's what happens with clubs here.
| As an associate, you can vote on the next president.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| >FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption
|
| Understatement of the year
| turminal wrote:
| This looks like it's slowly improving though.
| newsclues wrote:
| How can you differentiate a corrupt organization cleaning
| house and replacing corrupt officials with honest ones, and
| a corrupt organization appearing to clean house and
| replacing known corrupt officials with ones that have yet
| to be proven to be corrupt yet?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Are you serious? Infantino is trying to introduce a two-
| year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make more money.
| Not to mention that Infantino and two Swiss judicial
| officials are under active investigation in a corruption
| scandal [1].
|
| FIFA is a bunch of corrupt crooks, and while some
| individuals have been shown the door when the amount of
| corruption became too large, the institution itself has
| done nothing to prevent corruption.
|
| [1]: https://www.admin.ch/gov/de/start/dokumentation/medien
| mittei...
| pndy wrote:
| > a two-year schedule for the World Cup, solely to make
| more money
|
| That was reported here with "Everyone will profit from
| this (decision)" Infantino quote in some headlines. It's
| like FIFA is run by the Ferengi... /s
| ramblerman wrote:
| > Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule
| for the World Cup, solely to make more money.
|
| While I also don't love that idea there is a BIG
| difference between making more money for the organization
| FIFA and profiting from it vs direct corruption. Ie
| taking bribes from Qatar
| lordnacho wrote:
| They are intimately connected, aren't they? Twice as many
| WCs, twice as many chances to sell your vote.
|
| FIFA the org doesn't need more money, any extra they get
| will get pocketed with intra-org admin, where the jobs
| are also doled out as favours.
| afavour wrote:
| Not necessarily. Twice as many World Cups is a massive
| money making opportunity irrespective of sold votes.
| Unless you argue the pursuit of more money is inherently
| corrupt (...which I don't know I'd entirely disagree
| with!)
| Bud wrote:
| It's not automatically a massive opportunity. It's
| reasonably likely that it dilutes the specialness of the
| product, makes it less attractive, and then it makes less
| money per iteration.
| eru wrote:
| Pursuit of money for your organisation is not corrupt at
| all, yes.
|
| You might not like it, but it's an entirely separate
| thing.
|
| (Just like it's silly to call everyone you disagree with
| politically either a fascist or a communist. They are
| other bad things, too!)
| eru wrote:
| > Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule
| for the World Cup, solely to make more money.
|
| That might be greedy, but it's not a sign of corruption
| in itself.
|
| There's plenty of real corruption in FIFA to choose from.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > That might be greedy, but it's not a sign of corruption
| in itself.
|
| _Every_ world cup assignment of the last decades was
| loaded with corruption charges - including, to my shame
| as German, the 2006 World Cup.
|
| More World Cups, more opportunities for grift and
| corruption. Not to mention that there aren't many stable
| democracies left willing to host World Cups, there's a
| reason why Qatar and Russia ended up hosting 2018/2022.
| eru wrote:
| > Not to mention that there aren't many stable
| democracies left willing to host World Cups, there's a
| reason why Qatar and Russia ended up hosting 2018/2022.
|
| Nah, stable places are totally willing to host, if it was
| offered to them. They are just not willing to bid as high
| as Qatar and Russia were. (Where bidding is informal,
| basically how much bribery you were willing to do.)
|
| > Every world cup assignment of the last decades was
| loaded with corruption charges - including, to my shame
| as German, the 2006 World Cup.
|
| I can believe that. But the amount of money in bribes is
| still relatively trivial compared to the total amount
| they make from the World Cup.
|
| (In general, what's so infuriating about bribes and
| corruption is how low the stakes are. If someone is
| willing to sell out their country for a few billion
| Euros, I wouldn't be mad. But have a look at eg the
| paltry sums that changed hands in the CDU-Spendenaffare.
| https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU-Spendenaff%C3%A4re They
| are talking about mere millions.
|
| Compare also https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/18/too-
| much-dark-money-in... )
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| Unfortunately it does seem like this is the direction
| football is taking. A World Cup every 2 years, some sort
| of exclusive Super League, etc etc. Football is a
| trillion dollar market with no cap in site. The fans are
| slowly being left behind whilst the "new money" of the
| Middle East and co are doing their best to takeover. They
| still don't seem to realise however, that football is 0
| without fans.
| Thlom wrote:
| New money in Middle East and Asia is exactly the reason
| for the proposed "Super League". Why should Manchester
| City play Watford on a regular Tuesday and Wolverhampton
| on Sunday. No one cares except fans from Manchester (and
| some smaller countries in Europe). If they instead could
| play against Barcelona, Juventus and Bayern every weekend
| there would be a wave of money coming from the Middle
| East and Asia where the fans don't know or care about
| football culture or history or the importance of the home
| league and cup. No disrespect to those fans at all, I'm
| just pointing out that it is a wholly commercial
| endeavor. Top tier football is business and I'm just glad
| I don't follow any of the big clubs in Europe. Give it a
| few years and they will start playing Super League (or
| whatever) matches in Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Fans at
| home left behind, but they don't care as the new fanbase
| in ME and Asia pumps a lot more money into the business.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| I do hope that the European Union and the UK government
| step up should the situation ever get so dystopian. The
| fact that there was quick and brutal condemnation for the
| "Super League" plans from politics, the UEFA and the
| national leagues was a good sign.
|
| Especially given the current de-globalization and
| nationalist sentiments in politics and the importance of
| football for politics as "panem et circenses", I expect
| anti-trust and even confiscation-scale action against oil
| sheik and Russian mob owners, should they attempt such a
| radical transformation of how football is played.
| eru wrote:
| > Give it a few years and they will start playing Super
| League (or whatever) matches in Singapore and Abu Dhabi.
|
| At least there would be less corruption in the match
| played in Singapore..
| sofixa wrote:
| > Infantino is trying to introduce a two-year schedule
| for the World Cup, solely to make more money
|
| You can't deny that there are serious advantages of a
| World cup every two years (currently even the best
| players with long careers can't hope to play more than 4
| World Cups - even 17 year old debutants like Bellingham
| and Pedri, so their chances of winning one are slim;
| there are many good teams that deserve to win, so giving
| more options can result in more winners, etc.), and it
| isn't unprecedented, the AFC and Copa America are already
| on such a schedule.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| The problem is, how are the European players supposed to
| keep up that schedule? At least here in Germany,
| calendars are _already_ stretched to the maximum
| particularly for the elite clubs that employ the most
| national team players: Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, Supercup on
| the national side, European League, Champions League,
| Club World Cup internationally, and on top of that the
| load from the national team games with friendlies,
| trainings and every two years either UEFA European
| Championship or FIFA World Championship. And _on top_ of
| that come PR appointments from sponsors and actual
| training.
|
| With all that load, players rarely have the time to
| recover from games, that plus the ever rising speed and
| run distance leads to more injuries, which again the
| players can't naturally recover from. It's a rat race to
| the bottom, and the players get ground down only so that
| advertisers can get more exposure for ads and random
| dictatorships can whitewash their crimes.
|
| And it's not just the players that can't keep up any
| more, the fans can't either. Traveling is expensive and
| annoying, particularly for games during the week
| (attending a "Montagsspiel" means two days worth of
| vacation), international travel for the cups means plane
| tickets and hotel stays and _that_ eats up money really
| quick.
| sofixa wrote:
| Yes, the calendar is stretched, but in non-cup years,
| summers have a few months off. Switching from 2/4 to 3/4
| summers having an international competition ( for
| European players, as i already mentioned African and
| South American ones already have competition every two
| years) doesn't really change that much. Even with a
| competition in the summer, players still get at least a
| month vacation ( Pedri, who played in the Euros and the
| Olympics got at least 3 weeks, the minimum allowed, and
| he certainly was an outlier ( and is now paying for it
| with injuries)).
|
| Furthermore, more competitions and more matches means
| more opportunities for more players to play a part.
|
| > And it's not just the players that can't keep up any
| more, the fans can't either. Traveling is expensive and
| annoying, particularly for games during the week
| (attending a "Montagsspiel" means two days worth of
| vacation), international travel for the cups means plane
| tickets and hotel stays and that eats up money really
| quick.
|
| Not every fan needs to see every game in a stadium. More
| games, more chances for more fans to visit. With a World
| Cup every two years, demand will probably be slightly
| lower/spread out, meaning more fans overall can go see
| the games. Not to mention that a World Cup every two
| years means much more host countries, which can be _huge_
| , for local fans and the sport locally. There'd be more
| shared hosts, hopefully close together. I'd love to see
| more neighbouring countries host, and i bet many
| countries and many fans in those countries would love to
| as well, especially for countries where qualifying to be
| a part of the thing isn't always an option.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Furthermore, more competitions and more matches means
| more opportunities for more players to play a part.
|
| In reality, coaches are under pressure to _always_ put up
| an A-level selection. For the FC Bayern, that means
| Manuel Neuer between the goalposts no matter if the
| opponent is FC Chelsea or Greuther Furth (the current
| bottom of the Bundesliga). The only scenarios outside of
| regulars being injured where coaches are fine to
| experiment with B /C level players are friendlies,
| training matches and irrelevant games (UEFA CL group
| phase, when the result of the last game does not matter).
|
| > Not to mention that a World Cup every two years means
| much more host countries, which can be huge, for local
| fans and the sport locally.
|
| Unfortunately, a World Cup requires large, expensive
| stadiums - billions of dollars, usually borne by the tax
| payers. In countries like the US or most of Europe, it is
| economically feasible to either use existing stadiums or
| build new ones (like Germany did) that get used for
| _decades_ afterwards. In countries without a large (!)
| football fan community, these will all either rot or
| cause massive financial losses for their upkeep - like
| what happened in Brazil and South Africa [1] or Russia
| [2]. Qatar will likely be even worse, they already plan
| on one of the stadiums being torn down directly after the
| World Cup [3].
|
| Not to mention the supporting infrastructure (public
| transport, hotels, press venues, roads) - if the stadiums
| aren't used to capacity, that's a lot of waste there too.
|
| > I'd love to see more neighbouring countries host
|
| That only spreads the expense, but the waste will be the
| same. A World Cup (and for that matter, also Olympic
| Games) only make sense in countries that can use the
| infrastructure at the designed scale for decades.
|
| [1]: https://www.musikexpress.de/millionen-projekte-was-
| aus-den-w...
|
| [2]: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/sport/fussball-wm/hohe-
| kosten-ka...
|
| [3]: https://www.stern.de/sport/fussball/wm-2022-in-katar
| --neugeb...
| eru wrote:
| Well, to be a bit cynical: a hardcore fan might attend a
| World Cup every four years now. If he (and it's mostly
| likely 'he') stick to that schedule even if more World
| Cups are held, his expenses won't go up.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| fnord123 wrote:
| > It seems that FIFA isn't exactly free of corruption
|
| Blatter and Platini are both facing a trial right now:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59133079
|
| In 2019, Platini was detained over the awarding of the World
| Cup to Qatar:
| https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/18/michel-plat...
|
| > Michel Platini, the banned former Uefa president and France
| football legend, has been detained in connection with a
| criminal investigation into alleged corruption relating to
| Fifa's decision to host the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, French
| justice sources have confirmed.
| a4isms wrote:
| Organized sports at the professional and international level
| have been in the business of sportwashing practically since
| their inception.
|
| Do you sell tobacco that causes your users to die a painful
| and lingering death from cancer? No problem, sponsor one of
| the most famous vehicles in F1 history.
|
| Are you leading a fascist state that will go on to murder six
| million Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and other "undesirables,"
| not to mention plunging the world into war? No problem, host
| the Olympics, they'll gladly let you use it as a propaganda
| exercise.
|
| But of course, if someone boycotts the Olympics, they are
| being "political." If someone raises their fist in protest,
| they are "besmirching the Olympics." if you aren't paying for
| it, you aren't allowed to exploit it.
|
| What has changed since 1976 and 1936, respectively? Nothing.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > A winter world cup
|
| The World Cup is played in winter every year if you live below
| the equator.
| afavour wrote:
| The problem isn't the season itself, it's the disruption to
| domestic league schedules.
| lentil_soup wrote:
| That's a very europe centric comment. As if the only
| leagues that matter are theirs, the rest of the world will
| have to adjust.
| afavour wrote:
| I'm in the US, so...
|
| The point is that the World Cup has previously taken
| place at a consistent time of year, every time. If they
| made this change as part of a plan to distribute league
| disruption globally then we'd talk about it as such, but
| they made this change as part of a corrupt voting system
| that led to a bad decision with a load of fallout they're
| still trying to work out.
| parthdesai wrote:
| I mean considering the fact that all the very best
| players play in Europe, and that's how seasons have been
| scheduled for the longest time, it does make sense
| midasuni wrote:
| Brazil's season runs May to December
| darrenf wrote:
| And Colombia's league basically runs all year (Jan/Feb to
| Dec). MLS in the USA runs March-Oct.
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| But many domestic league schedules are during northern
| hemisphere winter.
| alkonaut wrote:
| "Winter" is the period when it's dark and cold on the
| northern hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere folks will have to
| invent their on term. Like Swinter.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| Its not as bad as Argentina 1976. And people are not ignorant.
| They never are. But the show must go on.
| j3th9n wrote:
| When there's big money to be made there is corruption, take a
| look at for example the pharmaceutical industry.
| beebmam wrote:
| Stuff like this makes me proud to be an American, where soccer
| is totally ignored; instead we thoroughly enjoy successful
| sports where virtually everyone cheats, like baseball
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Isn't stadium building in the US wrapped in scandals since
| the taxpayers foot the bill for which private enterprises
| profit, while american football and basketball the source of
| several scandals where college athletes are basically unpaid
| slaves, exploited by advertising and entertainment
| corporations?
|
| I remember both John Oliver and South Park covered these
| topics.
|
| Not trying to switch topics or go whataboutism but I'm
| genuinely concerned about the massive corruption and
| exploitation around the modern sports industry that's somehow
| become acceptable nowadays, with FIFA being the richest and
| most corrupt non profit in the world.
|
| This current situation reminds me of the "bread and games"
| popularity near the fall of the Roman empire.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I'm not sure "scandal" is the correct word for stadium
| funding. It's not like any of it is a secret, it's all done
| out in the open. People just don't pay attention. And the
| tide does appear to be turning on that, since the newest
| and by far most expensive NFL stadium (SoFi Stadium in LA)
| was privately funded.
| Bud wrote:
| This has changed recently, of course...now college football
| and basketball players can have endorsement deals and such.
| [deleted]
| thom wrote:
| There's a great documentary on this subject by Michael
| Bertin:
|
| https://vimeo.com/ondemand/throwabillion
| eru wrote:
| Though at least in Rome the politicians paid for the games
| themselves.
|
| (Of course, where they got that wealth is another
| question.)
| Someone wrote:
| Enjoy it while it lasts.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if the USA men's team would become
| world champion within a few decades. The sport is growing
| rapidly in Spanish-speaking areas, Spanish-speakers are the
| fastest growing linguistic group in the United States, the
| country is sport-minded, and the USA men's team already is
| ranked 11th in the world (https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-
| ranking/men?dateId=id13505) (ahead of Germany!)
| osivertsson wrote:
| "The United States women's national soccer team [...] is
| the most successful in international women's soccer,
| winning four Women's World Cup titles (1991, 1999, 2015,
| and 2019), four Olympic gold medals (1996, 2004, 2008, and
| 2012), and eight CONCACAF Gold Cups."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_women%27s_nat
| i...
| gostsamo wrote:
| Germany competes in Europe, while the US competes in the
| confederation of oceania or something like that. Even with
| some corrections for the strength of the opponents, such
| comparison has weaknesses.
| Someone wrote:
| As always, such rankings do not always reflect true
| rankings (if only because that isn't a transitive
| relation), but FIFA uses an Elo-like system that tries to
| compensate for the strengths of opponents (https://en.wik
| ipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Rankings#2018_ranki...)
|
| That's reflected in the fact that, currently, 8 of the
| top 10 countries are from Europe (the other two are the
| usual suspects Brazil and Argentina)
|
| One difference is that, unlike in chess, there still are
| many uneven matches. If you're Liechtenstein, Andorra, or
| Gibraltar, for example, you'll play lots of qualifiers
| against Spain, France, Germany, and the like
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Nations_League
| corrects that a bit, giving such teams much better
| chances to tie or even win games). You don't see such
| things in chess.
| eru wrote:
| You mean world champion as-in, they might win a World Cup?
| Or as in they will dominate utterly?
|
| The former seems reasonably plausible, if the trends you
| mention hold true.
| Someone wrote:
| The first. Remember:
|
| - Iceland (population 350,000 or so) reached the quarter
| finals of the European championships, a tournament with,
| probably, stronger teams in the finals than the world
| championships. Only 13 teams from Europe can qualify for
| the latter. Looking at the world rankings, all of those
| are in the top 20 of the world, and, for example, Serbia,
| at 23 wouldn't make it to the final 32.
|
| - South Korea ended fourth at the world's, mostly by
| wanting it more.
|
| I don't see why the USA wouldn't be able to better than
| those, certainly if they get a bit of luck on their side.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| Please don't mistake the amount of luck that went into
| those results. The ability to consistently challenge top
| teams is the mark of a top team, not one-off results
| where luck was on your side and against your opponents.
|
| Remember, Greece won Euro 2004 but have struggled since,
| often not even qualifying. Greece are not a good team.
| Period. By the same token, just because the Netherlands
| failed to qualify once or because Germany were knocked
| out in the first round of a world cup, that does not make
| either a weak team - they just had an off-day.
|
| All said, i agree with the original point - i won't be
| surprised if the USA men's football team is a force to
| reckon with in the next decade. Same goes for the
| Canadian men's team.
| lpv wrote:
| "Soccer" is the fastest growing sport in the US and has
| overtaken hockey recently, and will likely overtake baseball
| and basketball in a few years.
| xeromal wrote:
| Why is soccer in quotes? It's what we call it.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| As an on-the-spectrum brit who was forced to play "footie" at
| 9:15am in 5degC frosty september mornings by uncaring,
| unsympathetic, if not abusive, PE "teachers" at my
| comprehensive secondary from age 11 to age 16, and previously
| bullied in primary-school to the point where I tried to hang
| myself in the toilets with my school uniform tie at 8 because
| I didn't support any football team and didn't collect those
| stupid football stickers - stuff like this makes me just feel
| despondent at the utter lack of any redeeming values in
| association football.
|
| Burn it to the ground.
| andrepd wrote:
| I'm sorry you had that experience. The school system failed
| you by not helping you as a victim of bullying.
|
| That being said football is a source of joy, entertainment,
| and camaraderie to hundreds of millions of people around
| the planet. There's really no "lack of any redeeming values
| in football". You should perhaps come to a grassroots
| football match, away from the multi-billion dollar dirty
| business the sport at a highest level has become, to see
| that.
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| Unfortunately, as a life long fan of football in the UK,
| this rings true from the opposite side, and I'm sorry you
| had to go through that.
|
| However, the sport itself has nothing todo with the bigger
| picture here. It just so happens that it's the biggest
| sport in the world, hence worth so much money to $REGIME
| who will do anything they can to capitalise.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I also haven't fully understood the point he's making,
| like "A shitty person just made me suffer to play a
| sport, fuck the sport", like wtf
| [deleted]
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| their point is made for themselves. Learn to recognize
| cathartic human expressions, it helped them that they
| wrote it out and looked at it.
| reedf1 wrote:
| Empathy not your strong point?
| [deleted]
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Association football, itself, in isolation, is a fine
| game. There's nothing inherently bad about it. If actual
| friends of mine want a kick-around then sure, I'm game.
|
| But it's the culture around the sport in the UK, and
| greater Europe, that's awful. Remember hooligan "firms"
| in the 1990s? Those things don't happen in a vacuum.
| Chiefly, the football culture in the UK is inextricably
| tied to the entrenched class system, in the worst ways,
| unfortunately - and I haven't seen the Premier League's
| televised pundits ever advise their fans to maybe,
| perhaps, actually be good ambassadors for the sport to
| the rest of us.
|
| (Okay, Michael Owen is an exception - my perception is
| the rest are like Eric Cantona: officially reprimanded,
| but we can tell people are lapping up his then abhorrent
| personal conduct. The same way people support Trump, I
| suppose).
|
| FIFA aren't running a tight-ship from the top. The tiers
| under them aren't coming close, and the conceptual levels
| below are only worse.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| > Association football, itself, in isolation, is a fine
| game. There's nothing inherently bad about it.
|
| Actually one can argue that the rules in football haven't
| kept up with the evolution of humans. When they defined
| the size of a goal, the average adult male was a full 10
| cm shorter than they are today. People are running faster
| and jumping higher.
|
| The sport would be a lot more exciting if you increased
| the physical dimensions of goals and pitches, so you
| would have 10 goals in an average game instead of 0 to 3.
| cromulent wrote:
| My father says that one of the reasons football is so
| popular is because it is low scoring.
|
| In high scoring games, the best team on the day tends to
| win.
|
| In low scoring games, there are more upsets, as a single
| moment can have a greater impact.
|
| Therefore even if your team is objectively worse, you go
| to the game with some hope in your heart.
|
| Making football into a high scoring game could ruin it.
| stordoff wrote:
| I'm not a huge football fan, but I'd argue part of the
| excitement of the sport comes from the fact that it is
| low soring - individual goals matter a lot, rather than
| just being a minor tick towards the overall score. Higher
| scoring games could dull those moments significantly.
| dncornholio wrote:
| Average goals per game has been 2.6 - 2.7 since 1962.
| Highest was 1954 with 5.38.
|
| 10 goals has never been an average, to reach that, the
| goals should be twice the size at least.
|
| I don't thing the size of the goal or people getting
| taller / faster is the reason we don't see many scoring.
| A big problem for me is the amount of downtime and the
| amount of foulplaying. Schwalbes are a real skill.
| Players fall to the ground way too quickly.
|
| Smaller field would make things more interesting.
| the_af wrote:
| > _The sport would be a lot more exciting if you
| [suggested changes]_
|
| Do note soccer is currently tremendously exciting for
| millions of fans worldwide. I understand you mean well,
| and everyone is free to suggest changes (some of them
| good), but the sport _right now_ is very exciting for
| huge numbers of people.
|
| Informally it's a tremendously easy and fun game to pick
| up. Any kid with a foot ball and some room can play with
| their friends. It's even how some players start.
|
| I don't think excitement is the biggest issue with
| football. The biggest issues are probably corruption in
| the business organizations around it, violence due to
| hooligans, etc.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| No thanks, we don't want it to become basketball.
|
| I've never met a football fan in my _life_ that complains
| about there not being 'enough goals'.
|
| What an american take that is.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Yeah I was thinking exactly the same thing about
| basketball, if you think scoring should be worthless then
| just watch that :D
| breakfastduck wrote:
| When sports are so high scoring and close with so many
| goals they just boil down to the last 5 mins of the game
| being the only part that actually matters.
| AlgorithmicTime wrote:
| biztos wrote:
| Having grown up in America right when soccer was inching
| towards popularity, and having then lived in Europe for
| many years, I've always been puzzled by the violence
| associated with the game.
|
| I can easily see it being a class-related thing in the
| UK, but the wealthy and cultured are very much into
| football in, say, Italy and Germany.
|
| I'm very glad that kind of sports-violence culture isn't
| a worldwide thing, and it makes me sad that the same
| sport can be innocent enough to be associated with
| suburban "soccer moms" in one place, while celebrating
| the wrong team can get you killed in another place.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I have issues agreeing with you, I am more willing to
| think that certain issues are more about the system
| segregating classes, not educating or giving chances,
| than violence exists because of football, then of course
| football is more accessible as you can play it with a
| paper ball, and has bigger numbers? I would say that
| violence would still come out as it's there and (used to
| come?) comes out with football, what should we do? Only
| follow sports that require better social status and more
| expensive tools?
|
| Or like yeah there are some example of players that were
| violent and crazy, as you can find in any place with a
| number of humans doing it, I'd say HSBC was laudering
| cartels money and funding terrorist, all bankers are
| criminals?
| [deleted]
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Jesus Christ. That is not a healthy outlook on things.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| With apologies for the hyperbole. Theres nothing wrong
| with the sport, I want to stress that. What I want to see
| gone is the corrupt FIFA as its officiating body, and I
| want to see the background culture of the football scene,
| where empathy is "gay" and where any complaint,
| regardless of legitimacy, is dismissed as "whinging",
| turned on its head.
| eru wrote:
| Ahem, it sounds like your problem is not with some people
| enjoying a sport, but with being bullied and forced to do
| what you don't like?
|
| (I don't like football either; neither watching nor
| playing, but I don't mind if other people engage in it.)
| swarnie wrote:
| On the flipside of this i think i learnt a lot about myself
| on the rugby pitch around this age.
|
| There is a lot to take away from it, simple things like
| organisation and schedule keeping to team building,
| sportsmanship and determination.
|
| Cold winter morning / evenings on the pitch or at the lake
| made me a better person im sure.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > Football is a gentleman's game played by ruffians, and
| rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen.
| arethuza wrote:
| I know it's a terrible cliche but the old joke that
| "Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and
| Rugby is a hooligans' game played by gentlemen" isn't
| _entirely_ inaccurate.
|
| I had to play football at the extremely low ranking state
| school I went to and found the whole experience utterly
| miserable. My son attended a public school and played
| rugby there and I enjoyed watching him play and he seemed
| to get a lot out of it, while the on the pitch experience
| was _far_ rougher than football the culture around the
| game seemed far more civilised. Of course that could just
| be the context of the different type of school but I
| thought it went deeper than that.
|
| Edit: A nice touch at our school PE department was that
| they were mostly ex Paras and they seemed to treat us
| more like recruits than schoolkids. There was one ex
| Royal Marine who while working us just as hard was at
| least good natured about it, whereas the others seemed to
| be in a state of continual anger.
| eru wrote:
| For non-British readers: a public school in Britain might
| not be what you expect it to be. See https://en.wikipedia
| .org/wiki/Public_school_(United_Kingdom)
| the_af wrote:
| > _" Football is a gentleman's game played by hooligans,
| and Rugby is a hooligans' game played by gentlemen"_
|
| In Argentina at least, football is linked to the people,
| low and upper class; it's a "popular" sport. In contrast,
| Rugby is linked to the elite; mostly well to do spoiled
| kids (in the public perception, at least). There were a
| couple of beatings/murders linked to spoiled rich kids
| who were Rugby players, enough that in our public
| perception _today_ a Rugby player is definitely not
| considered a "gentleman" but a rich brat potentially
| prone to violence.
| arethuza wrote:
| There is definitely an element of elitism in the UK
| around rugby, I can't deny that.
|
| However, I'd draw the comparison between a large crowd of
| rugby supporters leaving a match and a similar sized
| crowd of football supporters. I used to live near the
| Easter Road football ground in Edinburgh and that was
| pretty unpleasant and threatening on match days
| (particularly when Glasgow Rangers were playing...). I've
| never encountered the same level of sheer _nastiness_
| from a rugby crowd (and Edinburgh gets a lot of them) as
| from football crowd.
|
| I remember once getting the last train from Glasgow to
| Edinburgh the day of an Old Firm match - one set of
| supporters at one end of the carriage, the other set of
| supporters at the other end and a few of us non-
| combatants sitting in the middle desperately trying to
| pretend that nothing was happening. That was fun.
|
| NB Scotland does have a weird sectarian angle to football
| which doesn't help - although I don't think this is
| nearly as bad as it used to be.
| the_af wrote:
| Oh, the fans can be rough, agreed! Not a soccer fan and
| so I don't go to watch matches (TV set for me, if at
| all). But yes, rival football fans can get nasty. They
| scare me.
|
| I was thinking more about the actual players. It's also
| not a real statistic, just public perception: that Rugby
| players are spoiled rich kids prone to beating up other
| kids if they don't like the color of their skin.
| speedbird wrote:
| Simple evidence: when there's rugby at Wembley the bars
| are open, when there's football they aren't.
| the_af wrote:
| Simple evidence of what?
| pokepim wrote:
| Oh good, I'm sorry to hear that. I was also bullied mostly
| because I was fat in primary school so i sucked at playing
| sports. But I still liked to watch football and play fifa
| afterwards, like i think in secondary school it all changed
| and I became a fan
| bmj wrote:
| Let's not forget about our Olympic sports. Perhaps the
| massive sex abuse scandal in gymnastics?
| zahma wrote:
| The tendency by FIFA and especially UEFA to prioritize money for
| its partners and for its officials above principles and sport has
| turned me away from organized football. I find it repugnant that
| when BBC and The Guardian (among others) reported back in 2013 on
| Qatar's labor conditions in sweltering heat, the deaths, and what
| is essentially slavery to build stadiums, it was met by the
| football community and larger news media with a resounding thud.
| It wasn't until the last few years that footballers who had
| nothing to lose started to speak their minds. It's honestly
| disgusting to me to the point where I don't know when I'll ever
| want to watch the World Cup or Champion's League again.
|
| I used to get excited by these events because the sport still
| seemed to be prioritized and people got genuinely excited by
| seeing talent rise to the level. I came of age hearing just how
| good Messi would become after his early appearance for Argentina
| in 2006 I think. His rise has witnessed the transition to players
| representing teams and entire brands. It hardly feels like sport
| but lifestyle, prestige, and entertainment, something Qatar is
| desperately trying to purchase as their oil money starts to dry
| up.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-24394971
|
| Maybe there was earlier reporting on this but this was the best I
| could do on my phone.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Same for Olympics and Formula 1. They will always go where the
| money is and don't give a damn about human rights.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I find it repugnant that when BBC and The Guardian (among
| others) reported back in 2013 on Qatar's labor conditions in
| sweltering heat, the deaths, and essential slavery to build
| stadiums, it met the football community and larger news media
| with a resounding thud.
|
| Unfortunately, human rights violations don't interest _anyone_
| anymore, unless they are of political interest to someone (e.g.
| the butchering of Jamal Khashoggi).
|
| The UN is a dead paper tiger, with the US, China and Russia in
| the Human Rights Commission and the Security Council each
| protecting themselves and their respective allies from
| consequences.
|
| The US only care about wherever they see economic interests
| (Iraq!), the EU is too fractured and under the economic thumbs
| of Russia (gas) and China (cheap goods, destination for German
| cars), and China and Russia don't give any fuck about human
| rights.
|
| We live in a world of the strongest, not in a world based on
| the global rule of law. And I fear it might take another World
| War or an alien invasion for humanity to finally overcome that.
| The alternative, and this is where I fear the planet is
| heading, is China exporting its questionable ideas of
| authoritarianism across the world.
| pibechorro wrote:
| As it always has been. Decentralization is key, power to the
| people.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Hard to stand up against Russia or China with any
| "decentralized" environment - this is what Europe currently
| experiences: a small nation like Lithuania alone is
| powerless against a bully.
|
| We need _more_ centralization (democratically backed, of
| course!), not less.
| alkonaut wrote:
| So long as FIFA is completely rotten and thinks "one country
| one vote" is a good idea, this will be the norm. World Cups and
| nomination of officials will be done by those countries that
| can afford to pay poor/small/corrupt countries for votes. We
| should expect to see Petrostate dictatorships (and China) hold
| world cups and Olympics more and more often. Not sure what the
| solution is, but my first attempt act fixing FIFA would be to
| dismantle it and start a new org without the voting system of
| the current one. Even "only World Cup qualified states from the
| past decade can vote" would be an improvement on the status
| quo.
| chunkyguy wrote:
| Football or any sport up and beyond a certain level is more about
| entertainment than about the actual sport.
| jsiepkes wrote:
| Does anyone know how many players have actually declined to play
| in Qatar because of this modern day slavery?
|
| Can't be that many because I haven't seen any news about it.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I haven't heard anything like that. Seems like the world cup is
| just going to continue like it always does.
|
| That 400 million dollars of potential prize money, excluding
| all the extra ad revenue players might receive for wearing a
| particular brand of shoe or drinking a particular beverage, is
| enough to evaporate any morals. There's also the prestige
| factor, the dream of being crowned the best of the best.
|
| I've heard some stories of teams considering a boycot, but very
| few of those teams had any chance in getting through the
| qualification round. It's very easy to boycot an event you
| don't take part in.
|
| For the sake of sports, soccer teams have ignored the horrid
| treatment of the locals many times over. FIFA is corrupt beyond
| saving and the Olympic Committee isn't much different. The real
| game being played is that of the corrupt, taking money to
| ensure coca cola and friends can sell ads to enough people.
|
| We've seen massive changes in platform culture online when
| advertisers got scared of being associated with bad stuff, like
| with Elsagate on YouTube, so I think the only way to get anyone
| to care is to threaten the income of the parties involved.
| Treat any advertisement on Qatar 2022 as an endorsement of
| modern day slavery and be sure to let the web know how you
| feel. Maybe, just maybe, when the big companies start to pull
| out, the teams and players will suddenly find their morals
| again.
| lenzm wrote:
| A lot of these players are young, almost children, that have
| dreamed of playing in the world cup their entire life. If
| they're lucky and incredibly talented they can expect to get
| another opportunity, but I don't think it's fair to put the
| onus on them to boycott.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| To be cynical about it, principles don't buy you Bentleys nor
| does it attract trophy wives. Not that I'm saying I'm superior,
| I also like money and the comfort it brings me, in the current
| system that rules the world.
|
| Sibling comment has been modded to death by talking about
| players coming from countries with slavery, that seems over the
| top, but another online comment I've read is that in the Middle
| East, slavery is right there, meanwhile in the West there is a
| bit of distance. Who makes your clothes (probably underpaid
| Bangladeshi, or nowadays, Ughyurs), who makes your electronics
| (probably Chinese factory workers in not-so-great conditions),
| or who mined the minerals needed for them?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| On the other hand, the players whose decision to boycott the
| games would have the intended effect of bringing some of the
| corruption to light and putting pressure on FIFA to not do
| something similar again almost certainly _already_ have
| enough money to buy Bentleys and attract trophy wives.
|
| So, if a star player really feels a certain way about this,
| I'm not sure the money has as much sway over them as it would
| over someone else, like you or me, or some lesser known
| player (whose boycott would have much less effect).
| naskwo wrote:
| Could someone here do the math: how much CO2 is emitted by air
| travel to Qatar for football teams + entourage + fans vs.
| European countries hosting the world cup games (e.g. Italy,
| Benelux, Spain)?
| fakedang wrote:
| How is that any relevant? Any international competition will
| have a significant aviation footprint - especially something
| like the Olympics which involves far more countries than the
| World cup. In fact, I'd reckon the aviation footprint will be
| lower because of Qatar's relatively central position in the old
| world, from where fans are more likely to travel to watch a
| live football game.
|
| What's more relevant here from an environmental standpoint is
| the cost of adding lifestyle amenities (water, energy,
| landscaping, construction, etc) on the ground for the million
| or so football fans who will descend upon a country not
| especially designed to handle such a high volume of traffic
| without committing some serious ecological cost.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I dont know what to think about migrant death rates. The rublings
| seem to be worrisome, but proof seems to be elusive.
|
| Then one is forced to objectively look at the facts, and things
| get murkier:
|
| - Migrants are willing to co tinue yo travel despite the negative
| press - Migrant home countries are never in the news lodging
| official protests or expressing serious concern. - In fact, home
| countries seem to do absolutely nothing to curb whatever alleged
| excesses could be happening.
|
| Maybe people are focused on the wrong problem. If death rates are
| not scandalous or even serious (outside of higher death rates
| consistent with industrial occupations deemed as hazardous) what
| seems to be unquestioned is Qatar's abuses in imprisonment of any
| person, migrant or not.
|
| I'd like to hear more about cases like this article.
|
| I've been to the last 5 world cups. I am seriously considering
| boycotting visiting because of articles like this one. Good
| journalistic work.
|
| Closing: Regarding someone's awful experience in school with
| Association Football abuse. Im sorry this happened to you. As a
| parent of several kids that constantly play "soccer" in every
| room of our house, i can tell you the sport brings immense joy to
| many, including little ones.
|
| As a parent, thank you for reminding me to stay alert about
| abuses at school masquerading as PE.
| alkonaut wrote:
| > but proof seems to be elusive.
|
| Why is that? Is there no transparency and free press reporting
| on it? Then the numbers should be assumed to be much worse.
| FirstLvR wrote:
| Migrants continue travelling because they have no other choice.
| Am from Latam and these stories can be heard everywhere, from
| people that keep moving between countries, looking for an
| opportunity
| amai wrote:
| 2022 - Winter Olympics in China and Soccer World Cup in Qatar.
|
| They will be a huge successes like the Winter Olympics in
| Sotschi, Russia 2014.
| eisa01 wrote:
| I'd encourage everyone to speak up to the sponsors of FIFA that
| seemingly condone the spurious arrest of these Norwegian
| journalists. Same with the former football athletes that promote
| these games
|
| The Chinese government is able to change the behavior of
| multinational companies, so why can't we ;)
|
| List of sponsors: Adidas, Coca-Cola, Wanda Group, Hyundai, Qatar
| Airways, Visa, Budweiser, Hisense, McDonalds, Vivo
| kingcharles wrote:
| My girlfriend is native Qatari. I can tell you that most young
| native Qataris are as saddened by their government's behaviour as
| those outside the country are. Until recently there was nothing
| to be done about it.
|
| What she is telling me, though, is that there are high hopes the
| World Cup will bring about changes to society, especially
| regarding gay rights, to accomodate the visitors, which will then
| stick after the end of the event.
|
| Qatar was finally forced to implement some beginnings of
| democracy this year, ahead of the WC, after having managed to
| successfully put them off for a decade:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Qatari_general_election
| dcoo wrote:
| It still seems wild to me that, after discovering most of the
| judges who voted for Qatar to host the World Cup were bribed,
| everything proceeded as planned. Sepp Blatter was objectively
| corrupt, and Infantino is no better.
| grapescheesee wrote:
| Am I wrong?! 15,000 workers have died?
|
| How is a number like that acceptable?
|
| What if the event was Roman and I replaced workers with
| gladiators? Would the entertainment be more obviously a weight of
| blood?
|
| This type of wealth is a form of modern war. Albeit, the other
| side which follows successful, or non successful war. This is
| mostly paid for with oil profits.
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| 15,000 construction workers working on the World Cup have not
| died.
|
| 15,021 non-Qataris have died. The number includes any
| expatriate in Qatar - teachers, managers, fast food servers,
| VPs - everyone. Even among construction workers, the vast
| majority are working on projects that have nothing to do with
| the World Cup. For context, something like 80% of the 2.6m
| people in Qatar are expatriates, and these deaths occurred over
| a 9 year period. You can do the math.
| grapescheesee wrote:
| Thank you for clarifying.
| hluska wrote:
| Please read the Amnesty International report. This subject
| is way too big and too complex to trust anyone but actual
| experts.
| hluska wrote:
| djrockstar1 wrote:
| I'm literally just a Pakistani dude who's lived in Qatar
| all his life bored at work with nothing to do. Well, that
| or I'm a Qatari national working for the Qatari government
| as a social media agent, but doing programming on the side
| for some reason, who knows?
| cr1895 wrote:
| Please don't post like this on HN...you're just assuming
| bad faith and you're spamming this comment or a variation
| repeatedly.
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Let's hope that COVID causes this WC to be an attendance disaster
| for FIFA with empty stadiums the norm. Qatar getting the WC is
| bribery taken to the extreme. Let the lessons of this stop the
| tournament being manipulated for political and financial gains.
| And keep it in June when it's meant to be.
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