September 14, 2022, 22:29 PM
September 14, 2022, 22:29 PM
A majority of fans of the soccer World Cup, scheduled for Qatar (November 20-December 18), spoke in favor of FIFA compensating migrant workers whose labor rights were violated during the works for the great tournament, according to a survey published this Thursday by Amnesty International.
Since its designation in 2010 as the venue for the 2022 World Cup, Qatar has been in the spotlight of human rights organizationsespecially due to working conditions in the infrastructures for the tournament (stadiums, hotels, roads…) and the situation of sexual minorities.
The country is accused of not having declared all the deaths that have occurred and of not having done anything to improve the situation from the workers. Cases of workers who have not received their wages have been regularly denounced.
An Amnesty International survey with 17,000 adults from 15 countries, most of Europe but also of the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Morocco or Kenya, showed that a large number of fans are in favor of compensating migrant workers.
73% of those surveyed said “strongly support” or “tend to support” that FIFA use a part of its income to offer compensation to these people.
10% of the people interviewed “tends to oppose” or “strongly opposed” to all compensation, while 17% had no opinion on the matter.
The poll showed that more than two-thirds of the participants want football clubs in their countries to “speak publicly about cases involving human rights“in the framework of the 2022 World Cup, reported Amnesty.
“FIFA still has time to do what it takes,” Steve Cockburn, head of the social and economic justice program at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
“The fans don’t want a World Cup tainted with human rights abuses“, he added.
Several organizations for the defense of human rights, as well as fans and unions, launched a campaign in May to ask FIFA to use its World Cup proceeds to offer workers compensation.
“FIFA assured Amnesty International that I would reflect on this proposal, but no announcement has been made about it,” the human rights group said.
