Qatar 2022

I'll say it again.

It should have started this morning and held in Australia.

English, Welsh fans would be over there bouncing off the Aussie hosts. Regardless of where the teams finished the fans would have loved it.

I have a horrible feeling those fucking vuvuzelas will be back to create atmosphere for this one.
 
I seem to remember @Damocles once did a very in depth look at the numbers and compared them to how many deaths would have been expected from that amount of people if they lived in their own country during that period of time.

A radio 4 stats program debunked it by pointing out the death rate for the demographic involved was lower in Qatar than in Nepal and India where the workers were from - which actually says a lot as to why these guys are still moving in their tens of thousands to the Middle East and SE Asia to work in those conditions.

That doesn’t absolve Qatar of anything - more points out that conditions in India, Nepal and Indonesia are fucking awful and need improving as well, but they don’t have the spotlight if the World Cup on them so the HR groups seem less bothered.


I personally feel that a massive tactical error was made about 5 years ago where some groups made this into a West vs the Middle East fight and brought in such inflammatory rhetoric (like projected death counts in the guardian that again even the BBC had to fact check) that it made it almost an ideological battle between the gulf and the west instead of an approach that convinced Qatar et al that it was in their own interest to modernise their labour laws to make them more appealing.
 
A radio 4 stats program debunked it by pointing out the death rate for the demographic involved was lower in Qatar than in Nepal and India where the workers were from - which actually says a lot as to why these guys are still moving in their tens of thousands to the Middle East and SE Asia to work in those conditions.
Is that really a fair comparison? If the UK brought loads of foreign workers over and they started dying at rates massively more than those of local workers, but still lower than back home, would you be okay with that? It's supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world. The fact that their worker deaths are lower than Bangladesh should be a given. Having said that, it's hypocritical, given that half of our products are made in countries with terrible safety records and labour rights, and precisely because the have terrible safety records and labour rights, so it's cheaper.

In football terms, this is without a doubt going to be the least I'm interested in a World Cup, basically because it's interrupting the competition I care about the most. Like those annoying international breaks on steroids.
 
Is that really a fair comparison? If the UK brought loads of foreign workers over and they started dying at rates massively more than those of local workers, but still lower than back home, would you be okay with that? It's supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world. The fact that their worker deaths are lower than Bangladesh should be a given. Having said that, it's hypocritical, given that half of our products are made in countries with terrible safety records and labour rights, and precisely because the have terrible safety records and labour rights, so it's cheaper.

In football terms, this is without a doubt going to be the least I'm interested in a World Cup, basically because it's interrupting the competition I care about the most. Like those annoying international breaks on steroids.
USA 94 was the WC I hardly watched. Games over night and England didn’t qualify.

It'll be shite when it’s there in 2026 too.
 
Is that really a fair comparison? If the UK brought loads of foreign workers over and they started dying at rates massively more than those of local workers, but still lower than back home, would you be okay with that? It's supposed to be one of the richest countries in the world. The fact that their worker deaths are lower than Bangladesh should be a given. Having said that, it's hypocritical, given that half of our products are made in countries with terrible safety records and labour rights, and precisely because the have terrible safety records and labour rights, so it's cheaper.

In football terms, this is without a doubt going to be the least I'm interested in a World Cup, basically because it's interrupting the competition I care about the most. Like those annoying international breaks on steroids.

If you’d just kept reading a little further….


That doesn’t absolve Qatar of anything - more points out that conditions in India, Nepal and Indonesia are fucking awful and need improving as well, but they don’t have the spotlight if the World Cup on them so the HR groups seem less bothered.​
As for the World Cup, half the world plays football in our summer and has their leagues disrupted. Half the world can’t host in June because of their weather, I don’t care if it gets reversed once in a while.
 
Funny how many are upset by the “modern day slavery” in Qatar (because a World Cup is being held there and it will interfere with the domestic games at Christmas) but no one gives a fuck about the same thing happening in Abu Dhabi. Only difference is that the basic is higher for those workers in Qatar than Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

I totally agree the World Cup should never have been awarded there, it was almost certainly corrupt but City fans banging on about the alleged human rights abuses in one Emirate whilst ignoring the one that owns and funds City is hypocrisy in the extreme.

Edit. Just read the article, half the allegations, if true, are illegal. Companies are forbidden from taking away passports. The act of doing so is illegal and would lead to fines and prison sentences for sub contractors. So is stopping workers from leaving the country. Exit visas are noW approved by ministry of interior rather than employers (they do a quick check to ensure people aren’t doing a runner from court or a debt). Another allegation which is illegal is the cost of transport being put on to the worker. Every employer must fund transport to and from Qatar for expat (migrant) workers in total.

It’s also illegal to withhold wage payments to workers and in the past couple of years a new law and unit established to ensure these laws are adhered to:

https://www.tmf-group.com/~/media/files/pdfs/country essentials/emea/qatar/qatar wps_oct2015 final.pdf

http://www.mondaq.com/x/434888/empl...uction+Of+The+Wage+Protection+System+In+Qatar

As for armed guards in Malls, never seen one once in 4 and a half years. “Family zones” and workers not allowed in Malls on Fridays? Absolute and utter bollocks. I’m starting to think the reporter has never set foot in the country. I was at Villagio Mall for a meeting this morning and it was absolutely stuffed with groups of migrant men having coffees and cakes and walking around.

Qatar isn’t perfect. Far from it. There’s very little to do other than the beach, pool or go out on a boat (along with a dozen or so shopping malls the size of the Trafford Centre) unless you want to go to nice bars and get hammered. It should not be hosting a World Cup no doubt, that sort of thing should happen in countries where Football ‘is a thing’. But it will and the infrastructure will be ready and expensive and modern when the time comes and I’ll get to piss off to the Caymans or somewhere else warm and sunny, but it’s ceryainly no worse than Dubai or Abu Dhabi and far better and more Westernised than Bahrain or Oman.

For anyone remotely interested in the real laws and changes made by Qatar in relation to workers rights, here’s a decent article detailing why the majority of the bollocks in the Independent article is either made up or illegal acts by sub contractors:

https://www.oxfordbusinessgroup.com...nt-changes-have-been-made-qatar’s-labour-laws

We, as City fans are well aware of fake news and certain editorial decisions to ensure articles are written with a certain bias appealing to the majority of the targeted readership. The Indy article may well have been true in 2012 but there’s not a single allegation in its article which would be within the guidelines of workers rights when it was written a week ago.

When the gang masters made 50 Chinese cockle pickers walk around Morecambe Bay in the dark 15 years ago and 20 of them drowned, no one criticised the UK as a whole. They criticised the illegal actions of the employers. I’m not sure this situation is too dissimilar. There may well be some companies still breaking the law but it seems that every month the local papers publish stories of contractors being fined and having their contract revoked for breaking those laws.

I'm surprised that you're not following the Guardian's stance on this.
 
If you’d just kept reading a little further….


That doesn’t absolve Qatar of anything - more points out that conditions in India, Nepal and Indonesia are fucking awful and need improving as well, but they don’t have the spotlight if the World Cup on them so the HR groups seem less bothered.​
Well yeah, but also because those countries have the excuse of being as poor as fuck. Qatar is rich enough to make the choice. It's the same way that we criticise the likes of Apple or Nike, even though their factories no doubt have better conditions than many jobs in the countries they operate in. They rich enough to do better, so they shouldn't be judged by the standard of a garment manufacturer knocking out cheap t-shirts to sell at local markets for a local customer.
 
A radio 4 stats program debunked it by pointing out the death rate for the demographic involved was lower in Qatar than in Nepal and India where the workers were from - which actually says a lot as to why these guys are still moving in their tens of thousands to the Middle East and SE Asia to work in those conditions.

That doesn’t absolve Qatar of anything - more points out that conditions in India, Nepal and Indonesia are fucking awful and need improving as well, but they don’t have the spotlight if the World Cup on them so the HR groups seem less bothered.


I personally feel that a massive tactical error was made about 5 years ago where some groups made this into a West vs the Middle East fight and brought in such inflammatory rhetoric (like projected death counts in the guardian that again even the BBC had to fact check) that it made it almost an ideological battle between the gulf and the west instead of an approach that convinced Qatar et al that it was in their own interest to modernise their labour laws to make them more appealing.
One of the elements of disinformation used by the Yooman Rights brigade is to neglect to mention that the figure of deaths of foreign nationals is ALL deaths, regardless of cause. If you're an accountant from India and have a fatal cardiac arrest then that's counted in their deaths figure.

The Qataris are collecting figures for deaths on construction sites but I'm not sure I'd trust those any more than the other side's figures, as they apparently only include actual deaths from construction accidents but exclude deaths from indirect causes such as heat exhaustion.
 

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