“When FIFA president Gianni Infantino is not empathising with minority groups, lecturing on postcolonial theory and sitting next to heads of state, he comes up with ideas to improve/ruin football (delete as applicable). Biennial World Cups, a global Nations League, 32-team Club World Cups… the ideas come spitting out of his head like tracer bullets. …”
The Athletic

“A Qatari whistleblower who was jailed after raising concerns about the mistreatment of migrant workers at World Cup stadium sites was tortured on the eve of the tournament, his family has claimed. The human rights organisation FairSquare also released a letter from the family of Abdullah Ibhais, a former media manager in Qatar’s Supreme Committee, who accused Fifa of ‘callous indifference’ for ignoring his case. …”
Guardian

“It is not clear from Ivanka Trump’s Instagram record of her family’s three-day visit to the World Cup in Qatar if she or her husband, Jared Kushner, heard any of the chants and songs in support of the Palestinians voiced by Arab fans at multiple venues during the first round of matches. But the outpouring of support — which was also expressed on huge ‘Free Palestine’ banners displayed in the stands, and by fans who intruded on Israeli television interviews to wave Palestinian flags and berate Israeli reporters — made it clear how badly Kushner had miscalculated, as his father-in-law Donald Trump’s Middle East peace envoy, when he convinced a handful of Arab autocrats to sign economic cooperation deals with Israel that did not respect the rights of Palestinians. …”
The Intercept_ (Video)

“Look who we are, we are the dreamers. We make it happen. There is something seductively inane about the soundtrack to Qatar 2022, present in the slogans plastered across its surfaces, the sonic assault of the World Cup PA, the playlist of official anthems, centralised messages, approved corporate machine-feelings. …”
Guardian

“… Franklin Foer: Really, it’s the fact that the stadiums in which the games are going to be played were built in the worst circumstances for labor. Human-rights organizations have estimated that thousands of people perished in order to make this World Cup happen. [The Qatari government disputes those numbers.] I think a lot of times with sports or things that we love, we’re vaguely aware that, for example, people working at a resort will get treated badly and paid very little, or that a piece of meat was raised unethically. But here, there’s this incredibly direct sense everyone should have that these games are being played in arenas that were responsible for a huge number of deaths. It’s a hard thing to get past. …”
The Atlantic (Nov. 17, 2022)

“Yesterday marked the midway point of the Qatar World Cup — 32 matches played, 32 remaining. Today marked the point when Qatar’s participation ended. They were already mathematically eliminated, but their 2-0 loss to the Netherlands at the Al Bayt Stadium — essentially in the middle of nowhere, 50km north of Doha — completed a hat-trick of defeats. … There has been an intriguing flow of supporters throughout the games. Qatar’s matches have started with many empty seats, which generally fill up throughout the first half. There were a couple of sections of the stands tonight that were initially entirely empty, before suddenly becoming full 20 minutes in. …”

“Need we say more? Thirty-two teams have converged in the tiny Middle-Eastern nation of Qatar to fight for their national pride, and so far, it is shaping up to be the spectacle that keeps football lovers faithful. But there is no sport without politics, and Qatar’s hosting of the tournament has unleashed a sea of criticism over its dodgy labor practices and poor human rights track record. Should we side with FIFA’s president, Gianni Infantino, in his accusation that the West is being hypocritical? Or are reactionary elites simply weaponizing woke-ish arguments to deflect warranted scrutiny? …”
Africa Is a Country (Audio)

“Today I feel … largely invisible. Today I feel like a boggle-eyed despot-groupie. Today I feel like essence of human avarice distilled through a series of filters, poured into a dark suit and presented on stage looking like a discredited small-town mayor with a secret. Today I feel like I really should, for the sake of world football, start to get a grip on this chaotic Fifa World Cup. It is hard to know whether Gianni Infantino feels any of these things right now. It is nine days since Infantino delivered his opening press conference speech, his Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock moment, his I Have a Really Horrendous And Deluded Dream. …”
Guardian

A political cartoon depicting slave labour in the construction of the stadiums
“From corruption to human rights abuses, go deeper into 12 years of reporting on the issues around the Qatar World Cup”
Guardian
W – 2022 FIFA World Cup controversies

“Qatar is a player. In the Middle East and across the world, the petrostate of fewer than 3 million people plays an outsized role in geopolitics, media, and art. Its cultural diplomacy has established the country’s influence — and now it’s doing the same with sport. The country’s absurd wealth is on display this month: It spent about $300 billion on stadiums and groundwork to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which kicked off Sunday. That money totaled more than all previous World Cups and Olympics combined. …”
Vox

Adrien Rabiot of France scores their team’s first goal during the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Group D match between France and Australia at Al Janoub Stadium on November 22, 2022 in Al Wakrah, Qatar.
“In 1986, the International Olympic Committee voted to split the Winter and Summer Olympics so they would alternate every two years instead of occurring together every four years. The new tradition began in 1994 with the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, site of the infamous showdown between figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. The IOC initiated the split schedule in part to bring greater attention to the winter events, and while this move did bring them out from the shadow of the more popular summer games, it also locked the Winter Olympics into permanent competition with an even bigger quadrennial athletic spectacle: the World Cup. …”
The Bulwark

“Who first came up with the concept of an opening ceremony to a sports tournament? It’s so normalised now that we just accept it, that the first thing we’ll see of a World Cup, Olympics or whatever is a souped-up performance-art event with dancers and a famous-ish pop star singing a confected anthem. It would now feel weird not to have one, like we’re missing out on something important somehow. Could we really enjoy a month of football without it being introduced to us by a rhythmic gymnastic demonstration and Jennifer Lopez? It’s too late now, we’ve been brainwashed. Plus, they’re essentially harmless, aren’t they? …”
The Athletic

“The Qatar World Cup has provoked strong and sometimes conflicting, reactions in many people. In this series of videos, written by James Montague and illustrated by Alice Devine, Tifo explains why the World Cup in the Gulf State is so controversial. The contest in Qatar is beset by controversy and human rights concerns, most notably the reported deaths of migrant workers. A staggering 90% of the population of Qatar are migrant workers. Why is this number so high? In order for Qatar to host this tournament they’ve had to build stadia, build infrastructure, build a team, and build a reputation.”
YouTube

“The selection of Qatar to host this year’s FIFA World Cup brought cheers to the streets of Doha in a celebration of the first edition of the tournament to be held in the Arab world. But the choice, made in 2010, also sparked instant criticism – over the logistics of holding a sporting event in a country where summertime temperatures regularly top 100 degrees; over allegations of bribery and corruption among FIFA officials who voted for Qatar; and over concerns about human rights abuses that have persisted in the years since. Now, with the World Cup days away, the Gulf country is expecting the arrival of more than a million fans. And billions more will tune in to watch the tournament’s 64 games. Yet the controversies have not subsided. …”
NPR
Vox: The many, many controversies surrounding the 2022 World Cup, explained

“We watch because of Alphonso Davies, Kylian Mbappe and the rest of the planet’s magicians. The World Cup is a beautiful amalgamation of the best of sport, a global gathering of artistry and athletic hope. It’s also a moral quagmire, and no more so than this year’s tournament in Qatar. When Sepp Blatter, the former FIFA president and a high priest of oleaginous behavior, questions the location of a World Cup, we’re all deep in the muck. …”
The Athletic

A worker on a construction site in Lusail City tries to stay hydrated.
“As the world’s media and teams start to arrive the facts and figures behind workers’ and human rights in Qatar remain hard to uncover. As 32 teams gather in Qatar for this most unsettling of World Cups, the following numbers serve as a stark reminder of the human cost of the tournament, as well as the ongoing suffering among migrant workers, women and the LGBTQ+ community in the country. …”
Guardian
Thousands of Migrant Workers Died in Qatar’s Extreme Heat. The World Cup Forced a Reckoning
‘A World Cup Built on Modern Slavery’: Stadium Workers Blow the Whistle on Qatar’s ‘Coverup’ of Migrant Deaths and Suffering

“The World Cup in Qatar is a controversial sporting mega-event. There’s no getting around it. From allegations of corruption around the bidding process, to the highlighting of migrant worker abuses in Qatar and the country’s poor human rights record, the tournament is plagued with issues that complicate direct audience engagement. But there are very few simple answers here. Qatar 2022 isn’t a one-off. It has come to represent a confusing reality; football is not and never has been separate from global politics. …”
The Athletic (Video)

“A letter which FIFA sent to every World Cup nation asking them to ‘focus on the football’ in Qatar rather than ‘every ideological and political battle that exists’ has been criticised by several recipients. The build-up to the tournament has been overshadowed by allegations of serious human rights abuses, including Qatar’s criminalisation of homosexuality, the widespread death of migrant workers, and the limited rights of women in the country. …”
The Athletic

“In 2010, Qatar was awarded the right to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. The country would become the first in the Middle East to host the world’s biggest sporting event, beating stiff competition from the United States and Australia. Since then, a flurry of corruption allegations and claims of Qatar ‘buying the World Cup’ have surfaced while the country’s treatment of migrant workers has also been in the spotlight. Here is a timeline of events and landmarks since Qatar won the World Cup bid. …”
Al jazeera

“With the surrounding noise on human rights, worker deaths, image laundering and the rest, it is easy to forget what Qatar 2022 is really all about, the founding message at the very heart of this global festival of football. Which is, of course, corruption. Committee members living high on someone else’s hog. Development money that never developed. The fat, wet handshake wrapped up in a TV rights deal. It is time, six weeks away from Fifa’s winter World Cup, to consider the base note of this thing. …”
Guardian

“… The World Cup is just months away and the Al Janoub Stadium manager is showing a group of reporters around his pride and joy, the air-conditioned venue that will host seven games, including the holders France’s opening game against Australia on November 22. The Athletic asked the question which, to a Brit visiting Qatar for the first time, feels like the elephant in the room. This tournament has been relentlessly condemned by human rights groups for the circumstances in which these stadiums were built. How do tournament organisers respond to that? It’s not what they want to talk about now the football is about to begin. …”
The Athletic

“The start date of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar is set to be changed. FIFA is likely to move the start date from the 21st November to the 20th November. But why? What difference will it make? Matt Slater, Jacob Whitehead and Seb Stafford-Bloor explain.”
YouTube

“At a flashy ceremony on Nov. 21 last year, some of Qatar’s most senior officials, including the Gulf nation’s prime minister, joined the FIFA president Gianni Infantino, top soccer executives and invited guests for a celebration. They gathered on Doha’s corniche, the sweeping promenade that hugs the city’s shimmering waterfront, to unveil an ornate countdown clock and to mark a milestone: the day they were celebrating was precisely one year before the opening of the 2022 World Cup. …”
NY Times

“A little over 10 years ago, 10 miles north of Qatar would have been a sleepy fishing village, and not much else. This place would become the location for the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Fast forward to today and a futuristic metropolis filled with the latest technology and engineering practices is nearing completion. Did Qatar build this city just for a World Cup? David Goldblatt reveals what this new city will be like. Illustrated by Philippe Fenner.”
YouTube