EELV Member of the European Parliament David Cormand issued a statement on Monday condemning Fifa’s decision to award the FIFA World Cup to Qatar and accused both Fifa and the French Football Federation (FFF) of being “a collection of guys who let themselves be manipulated.”
“I know I won’t watch,” the World Cup, which will be held in Qatar beginning in November, the former national secretary of Europe Ecology for The Greens remarked on Public Senate, without openly advocating for a boycott of the tournament.
“Do we realize what it is 6,500 dead people to build air-conditioned stadiums??” he asked indignantly. “It disgusts me: going to see people playing football and partying and underneath there are 6,500 corpses.” “It disgusts me: going to see people playing football and partying and underneath there are 6,500 corpses.”
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Qatar and a few other international organizations strongly refute the claims made by the British newspaper The Guardian regarding this particular number. According to the official tally, there have been three fatalities across all eight World Cup venues.
According to the findings of a study conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO), fifty workers in Qatar lost their lives in accidents that occurred on the job in 2020, and another five hundred had serious injuries. However, the ILO points out that there are flaws in the way that investigations and registrations of deaths are handled.
According to the accusations made by David Cormand, “both FIFA and the French Football Federation should be overhauled because they still consist of a bunch of people who have allowed themselves to be compromised in this incident.”
He expressed his disappointment by saying, “It’s a shame. The principles of sport, that’s not it. None of this has anything to do with football anymore.”
Read also “Stadium, air conditioning, booze, and smokes… How Qatar passed a first life-size test 72 days before the World Cup” to learn more about how Qatar passed this first test.
Despite having begun the process of reforming the labor market, the authorities in Qatar continue to face regular criticism from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) regarding the treatment of hundreds of thousands of workers, particularly from Asia, who are employed on major construction sites connected to the 2022 World Cup.
During the ratification by Parliament at the beginning of August of a partnership between Paris and Doha on the security of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar, several opposition MPs had denounced the “ecological scandal” of this World Cup, with air-conditioned stadiums or the “scandalous treatment of workers” immigrants, “quasi-slaves.” This took place during the ratification of the partnership between Paris and Doha on the security of the 2022 Football World Cup in Qatar.
A judicial inquiry for “active and passive corruption” on the procedure of designating the emirate to organize the competition on December 2, 2010, has been initiated by the French national financial prosecutor’s office in 2019. This investigation was opened in 2019.
At the center of the allegations is a meeting that took place at the Elysée Palace on November 23, 2010, and was attended not only by President Nicolas Sarkozy but also by Tamim ben Hamad al-Thani, who was the crown prince of Qatar at the time but later became the emir of Qatar in 2013, and Michel Platini, who will serve as the president of UEFA and vice-president of Fifa when the awarding of the 2022 World Cup takes place.