Criticism of the 2022 FIFA World Cup focused on Qatar's
human-rights record, namely their
treatment of migrant workers, leading to allegations of
sportswashing. Others cited Qatar's climate, lack of a strong football culture, and allegations of bribery for hosting rights and
wider FIFA corruption.
Boycotts of the event were declared by several countries, clubs, and individual players, with former FIFA president
Sepp Blatter twice stating that giving Qatar hosting rights was a "mistake". The FIFA World Cup delivered record-breaking numbers of TV audiences across multiple markets. In June 2023,
Le Point revealed that FIFA World Cup has raised great interest in the country despite "calls for a
boycott". According to the study by
Arcom, six out of ten French people followed at least one match.
Host selection criticism There have been allegations of bribery and corruption in the selection process involving FIFA's executive committee members. These allegations are being investigated by FIFA . In May 2011, allegations of corruption within the FIFA senior officials raised questions over the legitimacy of the World Cup 2022 being held in Qatar. The accusations of corruption were made relating to how Qatar won the right to host the event. A FIFA internal investigation and report cleared Qatar of any violation, but chief investigator
Michael J. Garcia described FIFA's report on his enquiry as containing "numerous materially incomplete and erroneous representations." In May 2015, Swiss federal prosecutors
opened an investigation into corruption and money laundering related to the
2018 and 2022 World Cup bids. In August 2018, former FIFA president
Sepp Blatter claimed that Qatar had used "black ops", suggesting that the bid committee had cheated to win the hosting rights. Some investigations found that Qatar sought an edge in securing hosting by hiring a former
CIA officer turned private contractor,
Kevin Chalker, to spy on rival bid teams and key football officials who picked the winner in 2010. In September 2018, a delegation from al-Ghufran tribe lodged a complaint to FIFA's president to reject the establishment of the World Cup in Qatar unless its government restored the Qatari nationality to all those affected from the tribe and returned land allegedly stolen from them to build the sport facilities. In September 2023 it was reported that court documents show a transfer of $300M dollars were sent top people who voted on the 2022 World Cup host. Qatar faced strong criticism for the treatment of foreign workers involved in preparation for the World Cup, with
Amnesty International referring to "forced labour" and poor working conditions, while many migrant workers reported having to pay large "recruitment fees" to obtain employment.
The Guardian newspaper reported that many workers were denied food and water, had their identity papers taken away from them, and that they were not paid on time or at all, making some of them in effect slaves.
The Guardian estimated that up to 4,000 workers could die from lax safety and other causes by the time the competition was held. Between 2015 and 2021, the
Qatari government adopted new labour reforms to improve working conditions, including a minimum wage for all workers and the removal of the
kafala system. Furthermore, in November 2017, the
International Labour Organization concluded that no rights were violated and made the decision to close the complaint against Qatar regarding the alleged violation of migrant workers' rights. According to Amnesty International, however, living and working conditions of the foreign workers did not improve in the last years. Qatar was the smallest nation by area ever to have been awarded a FIFA World Cup – the next smallest by area was Switzerland, host of the
1954 World Cup, which was more than three times as large as Qatar and only needed to host 16 teams instead of 32. Qatar also became only the second country (not including Uruguay and Italy, hosts of the first two World Cups) to be awarded a FIFA World Cup despite having never qualified for a previous edition: Japan was awarded co-hosting rights of the
2002 World Cup in 1996 without ever having qualified for the finals, although they qualified for the
1998 edition. Of the eight stadiums used in the tournament, six were located in the
Doha metropolitan area, making it the first World Cup
since 1930 in which most of the stadiums were in one city. While this decreased the distance that fans and players needed to commute, Qatar itself struggled to accommodate the numbers of arriving fans with its diminutive amount of space. Due to Qatar's
laws on alcohol consumption, World Cup organisers announced the creation of designated "sobering-up" zones as an alternative to wide-scale arrests of intoxicated fans during the World Cup. Qatar's World Cup chief executive of the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, Nasser Al Khater, stated that the purpose of the designated sobering-up areas was to ensure the fans' safety. If a fan was sent to the "sobering up" zone, they were permitted to leave when they could display clearheaded behaviour. Multiple news agencies described the controversy as a "cultural clash" between
social conservatism and
Islamic morality against the "norms" of
secular Western
liberal democracies. A number of groups and media outlets expressed concern over the suitability of Qatar to host the event. Issues ranged from
human rights, In December 2020, Qatar said
rainbow flags would be allowed at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatari officials initially stated that they would not prohibit the display of
pride flags at tournament venues, although the country still advised LGBT attendees to comply with the country's
modesty and avoid
public displays of affection. Hassan Abdulla al-Thawadi, chief executive of the country's World Cup bid, said that Qatar would permit
alcohol consumption during the event, even though
drinking in public was not permitted. There were plans to allow the sale of alcohol inside stadiums and at fan villages. Normally, the sale of alcohol is restricted to non-Muslim guests at selected luxury hotels only. However, in the months preceding the tournament, the display of LGBT material and the sale of alcohol were banned. The climate conditions caused some to call hosting the tournament in Qatar infeasible, with initial plans for air-conditioned stadiums giving way to a potential date switch from summer to November and December. While addressing delegates from African and Asian confederations, Blatter said allegations of corruption and some of the criticism, including those from sponsors, were "very much linked to racism and discrimination". The attendance figures at the matches also came under scrutiny as the reported crowd attendance was more than the stadium capacities despite games having visible empty seats. Prior to the tournament, a reporter for Denmark's
TV 2 was threatened by security during a live report from the
Katara Cultural Village; the organising committee apologised, stating that they were "mistakenly interrupted".
Tony O'Donoghue of Ireland's
RTÉ also accused Qatari police of interrupting him while filming.
Phaedra Almajid, a former media officer for Qatar's 2022 World Cup bid, has alleged that three African football officials were offered bribes to support Qatar's bid. In a Netflix documentary series "
FIFA Uncovered," Almajid claims that
Hassan Al Thawadi, who led Qatar's bid, offered €2.3 million each to
Issa Hayatou of Cameroon,
Jacques Anouma of Ivory Coast, and
Amos Adamu of Nigeria in exchange for their votes. Qatar was competing with Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US for their bid for the 2022 World Cup. The alleged offer was made during a meeting of African football federations in January 2010. Almajid states that the money was intended for the football federations, not as personal bribes. She initially disclosed these allegations anonymously to the
Sunday Times after being dismissed from her position, but later retracted her claims, citing threats from
Qatar. Al Thawadi has denied these allegations, calling them false and expressing disappointment at the situation. The controversy adds to the ongoing scrutiny surrounding Qatar's successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup.
Targeted hacking campaigns against critics On 2 November 2022, Swiss media outlet SRF Investigativ published an investigative piece about Qatar's elaborate and extensive espionage operation to secure the World Cup hosting rights. The operation, which was dubbed
Project Merciless, involved hacking emails and phones of FIFA officials and critics of Qatar's corruption and
poor human rights record. It also targeted their friends and family members to run smear campaigns and influence FIFA policy. Starting on 5 January 2012, a cyberattack targeted Peter Hargitay, a Zurich-based FIFA insider and consultant for Australia's 2022 World Cup bid. Hargitay and his son hired an expert who traced the hack to a server linked to
Rajat Khare of the mercenary Indian hack-for-hire firm
Appin. In November 2022, a lower court in
Geneva ordered the publication to provisionally remove Rajat Khare's name and photo from the article. As a result, he is currently referred to as an entrepreneur, though his name still appears in a
Reuters article about his involvement in the hacking. On 5 November 2022,
The Sunday Times and the
Bureau of Investigative Journalism published an investigation reporting that a group from an Indian hacking company had compromised the email accounts of various politicians, reporters, and other prominent individuals that had been critical of Qatar's hosting of the World Cup. It was also reported that the group had been hired by Jonas Rey, private investigators based in Switzerland, which were in turn hired by Qatari officials.
Migrant workers There was criticism regarding the state of
human rights in Qatar and of the conditions of migrant workers brought in to build the required infrastructure, including indentured servitude and working conditions leading to deaths. On 23 October 2022, an article published by
The Guardian included statements from migrants working on the event infrastructure. Surveying 1,000 workers, 86% of participants said that the labour changes had improved their lives and that better working conditions are negotiable. Legislation has also been proposed on the minimum wage, summertime worker safety, and the election of migrant worker representatives in businesses. Labour mobility is a result of changes to the
Kafala system. According to
Sharan Burrow, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, prior to the tournament, "the new Kafala system tranche of law will put an end to Kafala and establish a contemporary industrial relations system." FIFA President
Gianni Infantino has defended Qatar's decision to host the tournament.
The Economist has asserted that Qatar has a better human rights record than
Russia and
China, and that the country has received excessive criticism after being selected to host the event.
Move to November and December Owing to the
climate in Qatar, concerns were expressed over holding the World Cup in its traditional time frame of June and July. On 24 February 2015, the FIFA Task Force proposed that the tournament be played from late November to late December 2022, to avoid the summer heat and also avoid clashing with the
2022 Winter Olympics in February, the
2022 Winter Paralympics in March and
Ramadan in April. The notion of staging the tournament in November was controversial because it would interfere with the regular season schedules of some domestic leagues around the world. Commentators noted the clash with the Christian Christmas season was likely to cause disruption, while there was concern about how short the tournament was intended to be. FIFA executive committee member
Theo Zwanziger said that awarding the event to Qatar was a "blatant mistake".
Frank Lowy, chairman of
Football Federation Australia, said that if the 2022 World Cup were moved to November and thus upset the schedule of the
A-League, they would seek compensation from FIFA.
Richard Scudamore, chief executive of the
Premier League, stated that they would consider legal action against FIFA because a move would interfere with the Premier League's popular Christmas and New Year fixture programme. In 2015, FIFA confirmed that the final would be played in December. Critics condemned the Euro-centrism of these allegations, and questioned why global sporting events must be held within the traditional European summer season.
Bidding corruption allegations, 2014 Some allegations were made over the role of former football official
Mohammed bin Hammam played in securing the bid. A former employee of the Qatar bid team alleged that several African officials were paid $1.5 million by Qatar. She retracted her claims, but later said that she was coerced to do so by Qatari bid officials. In March 2014, it was discovered that former
CONCACAF president
Jack Warner and his family were paid almost $2 million from a firm linked to Qatar's successful campaign.
The Sunday Times published bribery allegations based on a leak of millions of secret documents. Five of FIFA's six primary sponsors,
Sony,
Adidas,
Visa,
Hyundai, and
Coca-Cola, called upon FIFA to investigate the claims.
Jim Boyce, vice-president of FIFA, stated he would support a re-vote to find a new host if the corruption allegations are proven. FIFA completed a lengthy investigation into these allegations and a report cleared Qatar of any wrongdoing. Despite the claims, the Qataris insisted that the corruption allegations were being driven by envy and mistrust while Blatter said it was fuelled by racism in the British media. In the
2015 FIFA corruption case, Swiss officials, operating under information from the
United States Department of Justice, arrested many senior FIFA officials in Zürich and seized physical and electronic records from FIFA's main headquarters. The arrests continued in the United States, where several FIFA officers were arrested, and FIFA buildings were raided. The arrests were made on the information of at least a $150 million corruption and bribery scandal. From those arrested, $40 million was forfeited under guilty pleas. In 2022, the president of the El Salvador soccer association, Reynaldo Vasquez, was sentenced to 16 months in prison in connection to over $350,000 in bribes. Following the corruption case, Phaedra Almajid, the former media officer for the Qatar bid team, claimed that the allegations would result in Qatar not hosting the World Cup. In an interview published on the same day,
Domenico Scala, the head of FIFA's Audit and Compliance Committee, stated that "should there be evidence that the awards to Qatar and Russia came only because of bought votes, then the awards could be cancelled." In 2014, FIFA appointed Michael Garcia as its independent ethics investigator to look into bribery allegations against Russia and Qatar. Garcia investigated all nine bids and eleven countries involved in the 2018 and 2022 bids. At the end of the investigation, Garcia submitted a 430-page report. The FIFA governing body then appointed a German judge, Hans Joachim Eckert, who reviewed and presented a 42-page summary of the report two months later. The report cleared Qatar and Russia of bribery allegations, stating that Qatar "pulled Aspire into the orbit of the bid in significant ways" but did not "compromise the integrity" of the overall bid process. Michael Garcia reacted almost immediately, stating that the report is "materially incomplete" and contains "erroneous representations of the facts and conclusions".
Russian participation On 9 December 2019, the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) handed Russia a four-year ban from all major sporting events, after
RUSADA was found non-compliant for handing over manipulated lab data to investigators. The
Russian national team were still permitted to enter qualification, as the ban only applied to the final tournament to decide the world champions. A team representing Russia, which used the
Russian flag and
anthem, could not participate under the WADA decision whilst the ban was active. The decision was appealed to the
Court of Arbitration for Sport, and on 17 December 2020, Russian teams were banned from competing at world championships organised or sanctioned by a WADA signatory until 16 December 2022, the day before the match for third place. After the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia's participation was further thrown into doubt. On 24 February 2022, the three teams in Russia's
qualifying path—
Czech Republic,
Poland, and
Sweden—announced their unwillingness to play any matches in Russian territory. Poland and Sweden extended the boycott on 26 February to any qualifying games, and the Czech Republic made the same decision one day later. On 27 February 2022, FIFA announced a number of sanctions impacting Russia's participation in international football. Russia was prohibited from hosting international competitions, and the national team was ordered to play all home matches
behind closed doors in neutral countries. Under these sanctions, Russia would not be allowed to compete under the country's name, flag, or national anthem; similarly to the Russian athletes' participation in events such as the Olympics, the team would compete under the abbreviation of their national federation, the
Russian Football Union ("RFU"), rather than "Russia". The next day, FIFA decided to suspend Russia from international competitions "until further notice", including its participation in the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
LGBTQ and women's rights There are no
LGBTQ rights in Qatar, with homosexuality as well as campaigning for
LGBTQ+ rights criminalised. As such, when Qatar was selected to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the choice to do so in a restrictive nation saw much criticism, with the security of fans, as well as the homophobic football chants of certain nations, were points of discussion. The main controversy came from a last-minute FIFA decision to hand out player punishments to European captains who had months earlier announced their intention to continue wearing rainbow-coloured armbands (which began in 2020) in support of anti-discrimination. Typically, kit violations incur a fine, which the teams had said they would pay; on the day of the first match involving one of the teams, FIFA reportedly told the teams that they would receive a yellow card at a minimum for wearing the armbands. Qatari officials stated that all people are welcome as long as they follow the public display of affection laws which apply to everyone. Security officials at stadiums also confiscated items of rainbow clothing and flags featuring rainbows. American journalist
Grant Wahl was briefly detained for wearing a T-shirt with a rainbow on it. Wahl reportedly received death threats for wearing the shirt, later dying at the stadium. Other journalists with Wahl at the time of his death have reported that he began fitting or experiencing a seizure, and called for help himself. They criticised the Qatar Supreme Committee for not providing
defibrillators in the stadium, as they had looked for one to try to help Wahl. In response, FIFA said that according to the ambulance service, a defibrillator was made available when paramedics later arrived on scene. An autopsy done on Wahl in
New York City later revealed that Wahl died from an
aortic aneurysm rupture. Discrimination against women in Qatar was also criticised.
Women in Qatar have few freedoms, as they must obtain permission from their male guardians to marry, study abroad on government scholarships, work in many government jobs, travel abroad, receive certain forms of reproductive health care, and act as the primary guardian of children, even if they are divorced. Qatar attracted particular criticism for an incident where a Mexican employee of the World Cup Organizing Committee was accused of allegedly having
sex outside of marriage. The woman had previously reported rape, while the male claimed to have been in a relationship with her, after which the woman was investigated for extramarital sex. Women in Qatar face the possible penalty of
flagellation and a seven-year prison sentence if convicted for having sex outside of marriage. The criminal case was eventually dropped months after she was allowed to leave Qatar.
Influence of Iran " slogan. In November 2022, there were reports suggesting that the government of
Iran were working with Qatari officials to suppress anti-government protests at the 2022 FIFA World Cup, in light of the
Mahsa Amini protests. Leaked documents and audio clips suggested that Iranian government officials were in correspondence with Qatari authorities in order to handle possible protesters. In November 2022, the Qatari government revoked the visas of journalists from a London-based Iranian news channel,
Iran International, known for being critical of the regime, who were seeking to cover the World Cup. On 21 November 2022, during the first group stage match from Group B, between Iran and England, attempts were reportedly made by the stadium's security forces to block Iranian fans who wore clothing or carried items bearing slogans that were deemed unsympathetic to the Islamic government of Iran. These included T-shirts and signs with "
Woman, Life, Freedom" embedded onto them, Iran's previous flags such as the
Lion and Sun flag, or any slogans containing the name of
Mahsa Amini. This crackdown continued throughout all of Iran's matches at the World Cup.
Treatment of Jewish and Israeli visitors Qatar had previously promised to provide Jewish tourists with cooked
kosher food and public
Jewish prayer services at the tournament. However, shortly before the World Cup began, both were banned by Qatar, who claimed it could not secure the safety of Jews. Qatar alleged that they could not "secure" the safety of publicly praying Jewish tourists, whilst many foreign Jews complained that they subsequently had no food available to eat. It was estimated that 10,000
religious Jews from Israel and around the world arrived to watch the World Cup in Qatar. Whilst Jewish organisations complained of being unable to find cooked kosher food, Multiple Israeli reporters at the tournament reported fans from
Arab nations waving
Palestinian flags and chanting
anti-Israeli slogans while harassing them. Some Israelis reported that they had been escorted out of restaurants when their nationality was revealed. The Israeli government warned its citizens traveling to the tournament to hide their Israeli identity out of safety concerns.
Accommodation The
Rawdat Al Jahhaniya fan village was criticised for its overpriced "night cabins" (£185 per night) made out of shipping containers. Tourists complained that the air conditioners in the cabins did not function well, facilities were falling apart, and the sleeping experience did not match their expectations. The BBC reported that the tent accommodation at the Qetaifan Island fan village got criticism for having brown-coloured tap water and no air conditioning other than a standing fan. The tent village in
Al Khor was criticised for having inconvenient transportation, a lack of alcohol, long waits to check in, and no locks on the tents. The lack of suitable and affordable accommodation raised demand for daily shuttle flights from neighbouring areas, such as Dubai, that had adequate numbers of hotel rooms. == See also ==