Speaker 1: The circular conveyor belt a cabman Dou's Trobooven International Airport
Speaker 1: is chaos. Passengers returning from Qatar elbow for room to
Speaker 1: grab their cellophane wrap suitcases and battered cardboard boxes filled
Speaker 1: with expensive and hard to get stuff like flat screen TVs,
Speaker 1: mobile phones, and designer clothes. But in this clamor you'll
Speaker 1: find another type of traveler, eyes swollen with grief, clutching
Speaker 1: crumpled tissues, reaching into the jumbled mess of luggage to
Speaker 1: claim something far more precious. The big wooden boxes they
Speaker 1: reach for are sometimes a light beige color, other times
Speaker 1: they're painted a bright red. They all have the same
Speaker 1: words stamped on the side, human remains. We've got coffins
Speaker 1: coming home every day more than a worker day on average,
Speaker 1: is dying. It's a senior see repeated in airports across
Speaker 1: Asia and Africa. FIFA's alleged tradition of bribery is taking
Speaker 1: a real human toll. Ever since the tiny oil rich
Speaker 1: nation of Qatar was awarded the World Cup in that
Speaker 1: sham election back in two thousand and ten, millions of
Speaker 1: migrant workers have fled the soul crushing poverty of Nepal, Kenya, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan,
Speaker 1: the Philippines in countless other countries for jobs building Qatar's
Speaker 1: World Cup stadiums, new roads and tourist hotels. But opportunity
Speaker 1: has come with a deadly price. In the last decade, thousands,
Speaker 1: yes thousands, of these temporary workers have died, their families
Speaker 1: left to scuffle with tourists to retrieve their remains. The
Speaker 1: Guardian found that over six thousand, five hundred migrant workers
Speaker 1: have died in Qatar since the country was awarded the
Speaker 1: contract for the two World Cup. More than six thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred people, just regular people trying to make a
Speaker 1: better life, killed while working in Qatar. It's hard to
Speaker 1: wrap your head around a death toll that large, and
Speaker 1: if you can believe it, that staggering number might even
Speaker 1: be larger. The exact number of workers killed in support
Speaker 1: of the World Cup isn't truly known because Qatar, FIFA's
Speaker 1: World Cup partner, refuses to release the information. The Guardian newspaper,
Speaker 1: which initially compiled the list of deaths, only had death
Speaker 1: records from five countries India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1: Many other countries in Africa and Asia refused or are
Speaker 1: unable to provide the data, so it's almost certain the
Speaker 1: total is higher. But the scale of the death should
Speaker 1: be world shaking news on its own, and I guess
Speaker 1: the average soccer fan hasn't even heard about it. I'm
Speaker 1: Connor Powell. This is episode twelve Qatar. By listening to
Speaker 1: this series, you now understand FIFA's dark history. It's racist origins,
Speaker 1: it's misogyny, it's coziness with authoritarian regimes, it's singular pursuit
Speaker 1: of profit, it's systemic corruption. And you've heard how Qatar
Speaker 1: won the rights to host the biggest sporting event in
Speaker 1: the world, and how that sketchy vote led to the
Speaker 1: indictments of dozens of soccer officials in two thousand and fifteen.
Speaker 1: But with the first match of the World Cup just
Speaker 1: months away, I want to explain to you in detail
Speaker 1: that two thousand ten selection of Qatar is doing to
Speaker 1: some of the poorest people in the world. And why
Speaker 1: a desert country smaller than the state of Connecticut, with
Speaker 1: scorching hot temperatures and no modern FIFA quality soccer stadiums whatsoever,
Speaker 1: has turned out to be an awful dare I say
Speaker 1: im moral choice to host the World Cup and how
Speaker 1: FIFA's decision to award the tournament to Guitar shows FIFA
Speaker 1: hasn't learned its lessons, as the organization continues to exhibit
Speaker 1: an almost total disregard for human rights and basic decency.
Speaker 1: It's a clever commercial. It plays on every emotion a
Speaker 1: sports fan has. Weaving in and out in between the
Speaker 1: legs of dozens of grown adults. A young boy in
Speaker 1: jane shorts with ratty white sneakers skillfully maneuvers a tattered
Speaker 1: soccer ball across the bone dry dirt floor of a
Speaker 1: public market. He encounters a conveniently placed set of mirrors.
Speaker 1: He leans in to steal a glimpse of his own reflection,
Speaker 1: but instead of seeing himself, the young soccer player sees
Speaker 1: the beaming smile of the Argentine superstar Lionel Messi looking
Speaker 1: right back at him. Sat get any I guess in
Speaker 1: The essence and allure of this television commercial is pretty obvious.
Speaker 1: No matter what language you speak or where you come from,
Speaker 1: you could be the next Messi. This slick commercial just
Speaker 1: one of many that ran across Africa in the last decade.
Speaker 1: Was produced and paid for by Qatar's Aspire Academy. The
Speaker 1: Aspire Zone is a world class destination for sports excellence
Speaker 1: and has some of the world's finest sporting state dames
Speaker 1: and venues, where we offer unparalleled opportunities for athlete development,
Speaker 1: education and the making of champions. With its distinctive sloping
Speaker 1: sapphire blue roof, Qatar's massive, thirteen story tall Aspired Dome
Speaker 1: Stadium can be seen from miles away. At nearly one
Speaker 1: point three million square feet, that's more than twice the
Speaker 1: area covered by the Superdome in New Orleans. Aspire is
Speaker 1: a state of the art sports training complex created to
Speaker 1: produce the next generation of world class soccer players. This
Speaker 1: place is astounding. I mean even the top clubs in
Speaker 1: the world like Manchester United environed men off and go
Speaker 1: train there and they're astounded by the facilities. That's journal
Speaker 1: of Sebastian Abbott, author of The Away Game, the epic
Speaker 1: search for Soccer's Next Superstars, which is all about sport
Speaker 1: and Qatar. The Aspire Academy, he said, is not only
Speaker 1: the largest end or sporting complex in the world, it
Speaker 1: also reflects in embodies tiny Qatar's global ambitions. There's a
Speaker 1: joke that Katar is really just a family business with
Speaker 1: a seat at the United Nations because it's basically the
Speaker 1: family wealth of the royal family. Qatar, or more specifically,
Speaker 1: its royal family, led by the Emir Shaik Tamim bin
Speaker 1: Hammad Alfani, is determined to use its seemingly infinite wealth
Speaker 1: to establish the Gulf nation as a major player on
Speaker 1: the world stage. While its neighbors Dubai and Abu Dhabi
Speaker 1: have tapped their vast resources to become commercial and financial hubs,
Speaker 1: Qatar has tried to transform its oil and gas fortune
Speaker 1: into political and athletic power. They've used that cash in
Speaker 1: all sorts of ways to try and, you know, increase
Speaker 1: their standing on the world stage. You can sort of
Speaker 1: understand it from their perspective, because is if you're a
Speaker 1: tiny little country like they are, how else are you
Speaker 1: going to throw your weight around. Long before Qatar was
Speaker 1: awarded the World Cup, the Emir's brother, shake Jessum, a
Speaker 1: massive soccer fan who built a lush, regulation size soccer
Speaker 1: field at his palace in Doha, set out to accomplish
Speaker 1: what seemed an impossible task to elevate Qatar's national soccer
Speaker 1: team into the upper echelons of the sport. Qatar's national
Speaker 1: soccer team is anything but a powerhouse. It's never come
Speaker 1: close to qualifying for a World Cup, and it's consistently
Speaker 1: ranked in the bottom half of FIFA's international tables. With
Speaker 1: a native population of just three hundred thousand or so citizens,
Speaker 1: Qatar doesn't have the depth to field a native team
Speaker 1: that can compete in its own regional soccer tournaments, let
Speaker 1: alone the World Cup. What it lacks in players, however,
Speaker 1: it more than makes up for in financial resources. After
Speaker 1: spending a reported billion dollars constructing the Aspire Academy complex,
Speaker 1: Qatar launched a massive worldwide search for young soccer players.
Speaker 1: They started at home in Qatar and found few quality prospects.
Speaker 1: So Qatar set its sights on Africa, home to a
Speaker 1: billion people. I hate to say it's so crassly, but
Speaker 1: in Africa, Qatar found people passionate about soccer who were
Speaker 1: too poor to pass up the opportunity. Beginning in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, backed by slick TV commercials featuring messy
Speaker 1: and armed with free Nike gear to pass out to
Speaker 1: hopeful stars in the making, Aspire Academy scouts began combing
Speaker 1: through the dusty and dirt soccer pitches of Morocco, Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria,
Speaker 1: Senegal and South Africa. In the last decade alone, more
Speaker 1: than five billion young boys have tried out for Qatar's
Speaker 1: Aspire Academy. Here's Sebastian habit. There's such a small nation that, yeah,
Speaker 1: how else are they going to compete on the world
Speaker 1: stage unless they can tap players from other countries. They
Speaker 1: were scouting thirteen year old boys. So I would find
Speaker 1: these young kids, bring them to Katar, have them live
Speaker 1: in Doha at Aspire Academy, train them and eventually give
Speaker 1: them passports and have them play for the Katar national team.
Speaker 1: To succeed in athletics, Qatar has long recruited outside talent.
Speaker 1: Qatar does have a long history of basically paying foreigners
Speaker 1: to become Katari nationals and compete for Qatar in sports,
Speaker 1: in the Olympics and otherwise. I mean, they've donated everything
Speaker 1: from weightlifting to ping pong to chess, and they've done
Speaker 1: it in soccer as well. In two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: the Kenyan steeplechase runner Stephen Sharno accepted Qatari citizenship in
Speaker 1: exchange for one thousand dollars a month. A few years later,
Speaker 1: Qatar offered three Brazilian soccer players a million dollars each
Speaker 1: to become Qatari citizens and hopes they had helped the
Speaker 1: tiny peninsula nation to qualify for the World Cup. The
Speaker 1: plan didn't work. Now Qatar isn't alone. It is a
Speaker 1: fairly common practice to recruit outside talent. It's done by
Speaker 1: many countries, including the United States. But recruiting children, some
Speaker 1: as young as thirteen, it's not only uncommon, it's downright sketchy.
Speaker 1: You hadn't ever really in history had a country go
Speaker 1: and conduct a massive talent search like this across a
Speaker 1: place like Africa, searching for players for its national team,
Speaker 1: and so it's sort of unprecedented, even though by all
Speaker 1: accounts the Aspire Academy is a top notch training program
Speaker 1: with state of the art medical and educational facilities. The
Speaker 1: practice of recruiting young athletes off alarm bells not only
Speaker 1: with European sports columnists and human rights groups, but also
Speaker 1: within FIFA, which we know, you know, historically they don't
Speaker 1: seem overly concerned with human rights. They got a lot
Speaker 1: of criticism from folks internationally that they basically kind of
Speaker 1: like harvesting Africa's best young players to nationalize them, which
Speaker 1: didn't go over well with a lot of folks. Not
Speaker 1: long after Qatar launched the aspired program, FIFA change that's
Speaker 1: eligibility rules, making it harder for young players to switch nationalities.
Speaker 1: They never sort of openly admitted that that was definitely
Speaker 1: their plan, although at the beginning they said we were
Speaker 1: open to these kids becoming country players, but they eventually
Speaker 1: changed their tune and say no, these players will play
Speaker 1: for their own national teams. It definitely continued to be
Speaker 1: controversial because a lot of people continued to suspect that
Speaker 1: even though Katar was saying these kids wouldn't represent Qatar,
Speaker 1: that somehow Katar would find a way to have them
Speaker 1: do that. For many years, FIFA's presidents at Bladder was
Speaker 1: critical of Qatar's player harvesting. Qatar is stealing the best
Speaker 1: players from Africa meant the home teams weren't as strong,
Speaker 1: and the Confederation of African Football they didn't like that. Remember, Bladder,
Speaker 1: like his predecessors y'all havlange South Africa as his base
Speaker 1: of support. Both of them want a lot of FIFA elections,
Speaker 1: keeping the legal and the illegal money flowing to African countries.
Speaker 1: Then in two thousand and eight, Bladder visited Qatar and
Speaker 1: the trip, says Sebastian Abbott, let him to have a
Speaker 1: change of heart, platter, changes tune and became very supportive
Speaker 1: of football dreams and aspire. And on that trip in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight reportedly said to the Amir of Qatar,
Speaker 1: We're going to bring the World Cup to Katar, and
Speaker 1: two years later FIFA did just that. From a distance,
Speaker 1: Dohas Abdullaphin Jessam Street just seems to disappear and becomes
Speaker 1: a stunning turquoise blue body of water. No, it's not
Speaker 1: a desert mirage caused by Qatar's legendary summer heat. Instead,
Speaker 1: several hundreds of the busy downtown road was painted blue
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nineteen in an experiment to reflect
Speaker 1: the sun's rays and reduce the city's overall temperature, known
Speaker 1: to reach highs of one hundred and twenty degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: cracking car dashboards and melting plastic trim. To state the obvious,
Speaker 1: Qatar is a climate that makes plain soccer outside in
Speaker 1: the summer impossible, even with the streets painted blue. Summer
Speaker 1: temperatures and cutsar can reach some fifty degrees celsius, a
Speaker 1: difficult environment to hold a professional sporting than outdoors. The
Speaker 1: idea of staging the World's Cup in the desert has
Speaker 1: been tentious since its announcements. FIFA's own inspection team, after
Speaker 1: visiting Qatar in two thousand and ten, called the oppressive
Speaker 1: heat a potential health risk. A country that is a
Speaker 1: hundred and five degrees in the summer, a country that
Speaker 1: had virtually no infrastructure at all as far as soccer stadiums,
Speaker 1: this just made absolutely no sense for them to win
Speaker 1: the bid. We now know Qatar bribed a lot of
Speaker 1: people to win the two thousand twenty two World Cup,
Speaker 1: but the wealthy Gulf nation also made a lot of
Speaker 1: promises the FIFA before that two thousand and ten vote,
Speaker 1: and now they've got to be reconciled. The lack of
Speaker 1: modern FIFA style stadiums, event infrastructure, and Qatar's searing heat
Speaker 1: we're all seen back in two thousand and ten as
Speaker 1: significant challenges that would prevent FIFA from awarding a summer
Speaker 1: tournament to Qatar. Qatar acknowledged its potential shortcomings and promised
Speaker 1: to quote novel approach to the summer event and pointed
Speaker 1: to the Aspire Academy as proof it could design massive
Speaker 1: sporting facilities in the desert. It promised mitigations, money will
Speaker 1: be thrown at the problems and the hate will be
Speaker 1: overcome by technology for the countries and promising cobbon neutral
Speaker 1: and cooled stadiums, training facilities and fan areas. Energy will
Speaker 1: be supplied by Solo Park, with money seemingly not an issue.
Speaker 1: The CEO of Qatar's World Cup bid, Hassan al Thawati,
Speaker 1: promised to build twelve new state of the art temperature
Speaker 1: controlled stadiums and to avoid the mistakes of previous World
Speaker 1: Cup hosts like Brazil, who built stadiums that languished and
Speaker 1: blood communities dry when the tournament ended. Here shake Hassan
Speaker 1: al Thawatti making his case, the government has guaranteed four
Speaker 1: billion dollars to cover the costs of our twelve stunning
Speaker 1: football specific, state of the art stadiums. After two we
Speaker 1: will this mantle the modular elements of our stadiums and
Speaker 1: reconfigure a total of a hundred and seventy thousand seats
Speaker 1: to create up to twenty two new stadiums in developing nations.
Speaker 1: But four years after FIFA awarded Guitar the two thousand
Speaker 1: twenty two World Cup, the wealthy golf Kingdom began backtracking
Speaker 1: as the logistics of a summer tournament became untenable. First
Speaker 1: ago the number of stadiums they promised, which was cut
Speaker 1: from twelve down to eight, and then they radically altered
Speaker 1: the traditional summer schedule of the tournament. After much debate
Speaker 1: and deliberation, FIFA confirmed a Winter World Call for cutter In,
Speaker 1: which will run from November to December. The temperatures will
Speaker 1: still be uncomfortable in the winter, but doable with air
Speaker 1: kindishteing if it all works. However, moving the tournament to
Speaker 1: avoid the worst of Qatar's heat also puts players safety
Speaker 1: at risk, and reek's havoc on soccer's lucrative professional leagues
Speaker 1: like Italy's Loliga, Germany's Bundesliga, the UK's Premier League, and
Speaker 1: even America's own MLS. They all will be forced to
Speaker 1: shut down mid season for about six weeks. The tournament
Speaker 1: schedule is different this time, as there will be four
Speaker 1: games every day during the group stage, a first in
Speaker 1: World Cup history. To try to accommodate the many professional
Speaker 1: leagues that will be impacted by this unusual winter World Cup,
Speaker 1: Viva has had to reduce the number of days in
Speaker 1: the tournament. Normally, thirty two team World Cup we played
Speaker 1: over the course of thirty two days. During the two
Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen Russia World Cup, players had about four
Speaker 1: to five days off between games, but with quitars shortened schedule,
Speaker 1: the games will be played over a compressed twenty eight days.
Speaker 1: Most teams will get three days off between games, but
Speaker 1: in the knockout state some will only get two days
Speaker 1: of recovery. This will be the shortest tournament since nine
Speaker 1: when they're only sixteen teams competing, meaning the very best
Speaker 1: players in the world are being forced to play with
Speaker 1: reduced recovery times between matches. Many players will then immediately
Speaker 1: return to their domestic leagues, jumping right back into the
Speaker 1: rigors of professional soccer with little chance to rest. Oh
Speaker 1: and the COVID nineteen pandemic has completely rearranged the qualifying
Speaker 1: part of the two thousand twenty two World Cup, making
Speaker 1: things even more difficult. Sure these athletes are all professionals
Speaker 1: who make a ton of money, traveled by private jets
Speaker 1: and stay in five star hotels. But FIFA, which let's
Speaker 1: remember is supposedly all about the good of the game,
Speaker 1: is forcing the world's best players to put an unprecedented
Speaker 1: strain on their bodies. It's conceivable Qatar's World Cup will
Speaker 1: be one of the most injury riddled tournaments. Ever, However,
Speaker 1: as problematic and dangerous as the Qatar World Cup will
Speaker 1: be for players, it's nothing, and I mean it is
Speaker 1: nothing compared to the horrors FIFA and Qatar have unleashed
Speaker 1: on the people building the World Cup infrastructure. It was
Speaker 1: late March two th Norway's best players nervously looked at
Speaker 1: each other as they walked out under the nights lights
Speaker 1: and onto the green soccer pitch. Please rise, Oh no Way,
Speaker 1: with slight nods of their head and sly glances of support.
Speaker 1: One by one, they peeled off their red warm up jackets.
Speaker 1: Wrapping their arms around each other's shoulders, they unveiled their
Speaker 1: message as their anthem played. All eleven starters of Norway's
Speaker 1: national soccer team before their tooth thousand, twenty two World
Speaker 1: Cup qualifying match against tribalter were the same white cotton
Speaker 1: t shirt. Emblazoned across their chest was the phrase human rights.
Speaker 1: On and off the pitch. Norway's statement of protests was
Speaker 1: only the first. The next night, Germany's national side took
Speaker 1: the pitch with the phrase human rights spelled out in
Speaker 1: large white block letters on their black shirts. Then Denmark
Speaker 1: made a plea their target Qatar, specifically it's abysmal human
Speaker 1: rights record and brutal treatment of migrant workers. For the
Speaker 1: last decade, FIFA has ignored calls to strip the World
Speaker 1: Cup from Qatar. Here's FIFA presidents at bladder in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, who did everything in his power to avoid
Speaker 1: even talking about the corrupt two thousand ten vote and
Speaker 1: the growing concerns human rights groups had expressed about the
Speaker 1: rush to build a tournament in the desert. The decision
Speaker 1: taken by Executive Committee in October that there is not
Speaker 1: one single doubt that the World Cup twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: will be organized in Qatar, decision taken by the Executive
Speaker 1: Committee on the second of December and not diversible. Today,
Speaker 1: FIFA is led by longtime soccer executive Gianni Infantino, who
Speaker 1: were placed the bladder after the godfather of soccer was
Speaker 1: booted out of office in two thousand fifteen. After Norway
Speaker 1: and the other team's voiced their protests in the spring
Speaker 1: of two thousand and one, FIFA under Infantino issued a
Speaker 1: statement saying the players would not be punished and that
Speaker 1: FIFA believed in freedom of speech and the power of
Speaker 1: soccer to be a force for good. Whether the sport
Speaker 1: under FIFA's watch is a force for good is still
Speaker 1: very much up for debate. That soccer and the World
Speaker 1: Cup are a force of that, there is no doubt.
Speaker 1: One only has to look at Qatar's ever transforming landscape,
Speaker 1: with its endless tangle of new roads and metro tracks,
Speaker 1: glistening skyscrapers, and massive steel stadiums, all built at an
Speaker 1: unimaginable cost. Work is progressing on Kata's World Cup venues,
Speaker 1: but Amnesty International says improvements to migrant worker rights are
Speaker 1: not progressing fast enough. Long before European soccer players began
Speaker 1: protesting Qatar's treatment of migrant workers, groups like Amnesty International
Speaker 1: and the International Trade Union Confederation we're pushing for new
Speaker 1: laws and worker protections. Qatar has made improvements, but the
Speaker 1: conservative Arab Kingdom and FIFA have rejected accusations that the
Speaker 1: thousands of workers who died were building World Cup infrastructure.
Speaker 1: The headline that came out of The Guardian was inherently misleading.
Speaker 1: That's Hassan Alpha Watti, the CEO of Qatar's World Cup
Speaker 1: organizing committee. He insists the reports of thousands of deaths
Speaker 1: lack contexts. Six workers did not die on workup World
Speaker 1: Cup stadiums. If we're looking at specifically World Cup stadiums,
Speaker 1: we have had, unfortunately, three work related deaths and thirty
Speaker 1: five non work related debts. Frankly, it's Alpha Watti's argument
Speaker 1: that lacks context. He doesn't explain how the other six thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred workers died, and he doesn't even address the
Speaker 1: thousands of bodies leaving Qatar and arrive in in African
Speaker 1: and Asian airports. You see, Qatar and FIFA only want
Speaker 1: to count the fatalities directly related to construction of new
Speaker 1: stadiums and training facilities, but those are only a small
Speaker 1: part of the building going on to support the World Cup.
Speaker 1: The construction and Qatar is booming dozens of projects, including
Speaker 1: seven stadiums, Rhodes hotels, and even a new air report
Speaker 1: have been completed or are underway. It is these projects,
Speaker 1: say human rights groups like Amnesty International and the Guardian newspaper,
Speaker 1: that have killed thousands since got won the right to
Speaker 1: host the World Cup back in all this development construction
Speaker 1: expansion is because of the World Cup. That's Mustafa Cadri,
Speaker 1: executive director of Equitum Research, which advocates for the labor
Speaker 1: rights of migrant workers. He's done reporting for Amnesty International
Speaker 1: about Qatar and the World Cup. He says, the Qatari
Speaker 1: World Cup Organizing Committee and FIFA have overlooked all of
Speaker 1: the construction projects built to support the World Cup when
Speaker 1: releasing their official death count. It's all related. They're building
Speaker 1: this massive railway system, new hotels are being built, new
Speaker 1: public spaces, shopping malls. It's really obvious that all of
Speaker 1: this is connected. So this idea that you can somehow
Speaker 1: isolate what happens within the World Cup from everything outside
Speaker 1: it is simply just nonsensical. Qatar intentionally keeps the death
Speaker 1: records of migrant workers vague, issuing death certificates with ambiguous
Speaker 1: descriptions like natural causes or cardiac failure. Many death certificates
Speaker 1: simply say the cause of death is unknown. Remember, these
Speaker 1: are mostly young and healthy man that Qatar imports to work. Statistically,
Speaker 1: this isn't an age group that should be dying of
Speaker 1: natural causes or cardiac failure, unless, of course, they're forced
Speaker 1: to work in unsafe environments like the insanely hot temperatures
Speaker 1: and Qatar. And really, why isn't Qatar doing more to
Speaker 1: investigate these deaths. Sharon Burrow, the International Trade Union Confederations
Speaker 1: General Secretary, didn't hold back when asked about Qatar's brutal
Speaker 1: working conditions. Qatar is a slave state in the twenty
Speaker 1: one century. Even when the construction projects don't kill the worker,
Speaker 1: they're still forced to live under barbaric conditions, and for
Speaker 1: most of the last decade, FIFA couldn't have cared less.
Speaker 1: Doha's glass and steel Altbita Tower is famous for its vertical,
Speaker 1: twisting design. It's long symbolized guitars march to a more
Speaker 1: modern future. Even today, as it's been joined by dozens
Speaker 1: of other newer structures, the iconic building sticks out on
Speaker 1: Doha's skyline. When the two thousand twenty two World Cup
Speaker 1: Organizing Committee was looking for office space about a decade ago,
Speaker 1: the Albita Tower was the obvious choice. From its thirty
Speaker 1: eighth and thirty ninth floors, Qatar soccer bosses developed the
Speaker 1: early blueprints for the first ever tournament in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: As much of a beacon for development as the Albita
Speaker 1: Towers for qataris. It also represents the callousness in inhumane
Speaker 1: system that underpins Guitars March of Progress and then two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty two World Cup. Some of the men who
Speaker 1: built these offices have become victims of serious labor exploitation.
Speaker 1: You see, back in two thousand twelve, just as planning
Speaker 1: for the World Cup was ramping up, it came out
Speaker 1: that many of the migrant workers who built the sleek
Speaker 1: new Albita Tower we're basically living as modern slaves. They
Speaker 1: went some paid for over a year. They were abandoned
Speaker 1: by their employer and left to live in squala. That's
Speaker 1: from a Guardian newspaper report. Qatar's government, including its Prime Minister,
Speaker 1: knew of the situation and for months did nothing. In fact,
Speaker 1: the treatment of Albida's workers it's hardly unique. Many migrant
Speaker 1: workers in Qatar live in horrible conditions. After all our
Speaker 1: work d This is the sort of home they returned to,
Speaker 1: overcrowded compounds, often twelve men to a room, and minimal
Speaker 1: bathroom facilities. Here, again, as Mustafa Kadji, who spent years
Speaker 1: investigating labor practices in the Middle East, the only way
Speaker 1: to describe them is appalling. You're talking about often is
Speaker 1: completely broken down, sort of Soviet era looking, very concrete
Speaker 1: apartment blocks with unwashed walls, of very dirty walls with
Speaker 1: no one coming to clean. The ground is very filthy,
Speaker 1: often with toilets which might have cubicles with no doors,
Speaker 1: with broken sinks with terrible smells, kitchens which are really
Speaker 1: infested with insects. When you go to these sites, the
Speaker 1: first thing that really comes to mind is it feels
Speaker 1: like a prison. You've got these gated areas, the security
Speaker 1: have to check in when you go to work accommodations.
Speaker 1: There's often bars around their windows. They're very clear sort
Speaker 1: of boundaries, and it's also that the sense of physical
Speaker 1: enclosure is really really strong. This life of squalor and
Speaker 1: indentured servitude isn't unique to Qatar. It's the norm across
Speaker 1: the entire Middle East from migrant workers and has been
Speaker 1: so for decades cut her. Another Arab Gulf states developed
Speaker 1: a system called kafala, meaning sponsorship, to bring in workers
Speaker 1: from around the world. Businesses like I don't know, say,
Speaker 1: a firm building World Cup infrastructure, uses third party agents
Speaker 1: to lure workers from poor countries and then the construction
Speaker 1: firm sponsors the workers employment in a country like Qatar.
Speaker 1: On the surface, it seems like oh when when these
Speaker 1: workers get hooked on this belief, this idea that their
Speaker 1: life can be better, the firms get healthy young workers
Speaker 1: and desperate families get a shot at a better life.
Speaker 1: You're eighteen years old, so there's increasing pressure from your
Speaker 1: family to get married, to have children like your elder
Speaker 1: brother or your realty is that are older than you,
Speaker 1: and you don't really see many opportunities in your home country.
Speaker 1: And they'll really win them over with these stories of
Speaker 1: these amazing opportunities and that over a short period of
Speaker 1: time you'll be sending over so much money that you'll
Speaker 1: eventually have enough money for a dowry or to have
Speaker 1: a wedding and have children, all that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But they have to go far away and they have
Speaker 1: to pay really large sums of money, but it's worth it.
Speaker 1: It's almost like getting a mortgage on a house. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're young, you sort of wonder how on earth
Speaker 1: will you pay off that mortgage, But you kind of
Speaker 1: feel eventually you'll pay off that loan, and what you'll
Speaker 1: have at the end of it is as an asset.
Speaker 1: In their case, the asset is a job, is money
Speaker 1: they can send home and a better prospect of life.
Speaker 1: So that's how they get hooked in. What recruiters don't mention,
Speaker 1: or the feces, smeared bathrooms, the twelve hour days under
Speaker 1: the heart golf sun, or the fact that workers residency
Speaker 1: rates are tied to the job. This is Mickey Warden
Speaker 1: of Human Rates Watch and Jeremy Shap of ESPN. If
Speaker 1: your employer is abusive or forces you to work long hours,
Speaker 1: forces you to live in squalid conditions, there's really nothing
Speaker 1: you can do about it. A migrant worker can't leave
Speaker 1: the country without an exit visa. That visa has to
Speaker 1: be approved by his employer, no matter how callous, in humane,
Speaker 1: or just playing awful the company is. This inability to
Speaker 1: switch jobs leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation. The winner to
Speaker 1: organize the two twenty two FIFA vote Cup is Ka.
Speaker 1: Long before set Bladder announced Qatar as the two thousand
Speaker 1: and twenty two World Cup host, the follows systems in
Speaker 1: moral hazards were well documented. Here's Qatari saik Mohammed bin
Speaker 1: Hammad Alfouni admitting as much back in two thousand and thirteen.
Speaker 1: I said previously, this workers welfare issue has come about
Speaker 1: long before we were awarded the hosting rights. We've had
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of workers in for the past fifteen
Speaker 1: to twenty years. FIFA executives knew way before two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten that a World Cup and Qatar would require
Speaker 1: a massive infrastructure program, one the likes of the soccer
Speaker 1: world had never seen before, and that meant a huge
Speaker 1: number of workers would be sent to Qatar to work
Speaker 1: under deplorable conditions. Knowing this, FIFA and Sepp Bladder did
Speaker 1: what they always do, look the other way. As far
Speaker 1: as FIFA is concerned, the onus is on the companies
Speaker 1: that employ the labors. Last year, FIFA's president said workers
Speaker 1: are the responsibility of the companies who hire them, not
Speaker 1: of FIFA. From the beginning, FIFA sloughed off any responsibility.
Speaker 1: Here is set Bladder in two thousand and fifteen when
Speaker 1: asked about worker treatment, I know many people hold me
Speaker 1: ultimately responsible for the actions and reputation of the noble
Speaker 1: the football community. We all, I cannot monitor everyone all
Speaker 1: of the time. FIFA keeps insisting there isn't much you
Speaker 1: can do about the treatment of migrant workers and their deaths.
Speaker 1: FIFA benefits from these environments where scrutiny is highly limited,
Speaker 1: and yet publicly, when there is some scrutiny and there's
Speaker 1: exposureable the bad things that is made public, will say, well,
Speaker 1: we don't have control. Well, it can't both be right,
Speaker 1: of course, with things FIFA really cares about, no organization
Speaker 1: is more aggressive or demanding. Remember Brazil and it's ban
Speaker 1: on alcohol. In two thousand three, the Brazilian government banned
Speaker 1: alcohol from stadiums because of the enormously high death rate
Speaker 1: amongst fans. Before the two thousand fourteen World Cup, FIFA
Speaker 1: drew a line in the sand and demanded Brazil change
Speaker 1: its laws to permit beer sales and stadiums. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to say, and maybe I look a bit arrogance, but
Speaker 1: that's something will not negotiate her. I mean, there will
Speaker 1: be and there must be as part of the of
Speaker 1: the law, the fact that we are the right to
Speaker 1: sell beer. FIFA has forced government after government after government
Speaker 1: to bend to its will and change tax laws to
Speaker 1: ensure FIFA rakes in every single shiny penny it can.
Speaker 1: It is FIFA and it's FIFA subsidiaries that are fully
Speaker 1: exempt from any tax whatsoever levied at whatever level, state level,
Speaker 1: the municipality level, all sorts of Texas consumption, texas income, texas,
Speaker 1: you name it. It's all except when it comes to
Speaker 1: human rights. FIFA claims it's powerless, but FIFA has pushed
Speaker 1: for changes when it comes to money. Cadre says, we
Speaker 1: know when it comes to other things like sponsorship rights,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the requirements for the tournament stadiums,
Speaker 1: when it comes to all those things around the financial, corporate,
Speaker 1: the professional side for FIFA, then in fact you see
Speaker 1: that Gutta has bent over backwards to accommodate them. FIFA's
Speaker 1: position on Qutars migrant workers has come at a cost,
Speaker 1: an avalanche, now a volcano of bad press. The tournament
Speaker 1: built moreover on the blood of foreign construction workers. The
Speaker 1: other great FIFA scandal, the ugly game. For years, major
Speaker 1: sponsors have watched the cut our World Cup descend into
Speaker 1: accusations of corruption and appalling labor conditions, as the deaths
Speaker 1: of construction workers pile up, with endless scrutiny from human
Speaker 1: rights groups and SEP ladders departure. In two thousand and fifteen,
Speaker 1: FIFA's new president, Gianni Infantino has and I'll give them
Speaker 1: a little bit of credit here, has called for improved
Speaker 1: worker conditions. We pulled it as a condition in our
Speaker 1: bidding process is rule our competitions, and wherever we go
Speaker 1: around the world, we are of course highlighting the need
Speaker 1: for protecting human rights. When it comes to the situation
Speaker 1: in in Qatar in particular, I think we need to
Speaker 1: be fair there as well and admit that a lot
Speaker 1: of progress has happened and all the progress in the
Speaker 1: conditions of the workers in recent years. With a very
Speaker 1: soft nudge from FIFA, Qatar past legislation revamping its employment system.
Speaker 1: In theory, workers can now switch jobs without leaving the country.
Speaker 1: A new minimum monthly salary is guaranteed and must be
Speaker 1: paid electronically, and employers must provide suitable food and accommodations
Speaker 1: or pay extra if they don't. But here's the rub.
Speaker 1: Enforcement of all these new laws is haphazarded best. Even
Speaker 1: with these changes, the mistreatment of workers continues in Qatar.
Speaker 1: Thousands of migrant workers are still being exploited, and too
Speaker 1: many are dying. There's no denying The two thousand, twenty
Speaker 1: two World Cup will be the most technologically advanced World
Speaker 1: Cup ever, with its estimated three billion dollars of futuristic
Speaker 1: stadiums and transportation infrastructure. It will be a modern marvel.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it's a modern human tragedy. FIFA
Speaker 1: can do better. FIFA has to do better. This is
Speaker 1: a PostScript. The red blood on the brick wall is fake,
Speaker 1: but the bullet holes are very much real. The six
Speaker 1: by ten ft section of the Lincoln Park garage where
Speaker 1: seven Irish bootleggers were murdered by al Capone's South Side
Speaker 1: Chicago gang on Valentine's Day nineteen, just one of the
Speaker 1: some two thousand rare artifacts and exhibits in the Las
Speaker 1: Vegas Mob Museum. The wall, like many other exhibits, helps
Speaker 1: tell the story of the world's most notorious gangsters and
Speaker 1: organized crime syndicates. You know, the jewel thieves, the cyber hackers,
Speaker 1: the Irish and Italian mobsters, the Mexican drug cartels, and
Speaker 1: the international soccer executives. This may not fit the perfect
Speaker 1: picture of organized crime, but it looks like it. It
Speaker 1: feels like it, you know, it tastes like it. That's right.
Speaker 1: Among the many criminals and crooks profiled and enshrined in
Speaker 1: the Las Vegas Mob Museum, there's a little corner reserve
Speaker 1: for the Federation International the Football Association FIFA. Jeff Schumacher,
Speaker 1: the vice president of exhibits at the museum, says, FIFA
Speaker 1: takes all the boxes for a continuing criminal enterprise. From
Speaker 1: our standpoint, twenty years is a pretty good run for
Speaker 1: a criminal enterprise. I think some people who came into
Speaker 1: the museum may have been surprised to come across our
Speaker 1: FIFA exhibit, But once they absorbed the contents of the exhibit,
Speaker 1: once they read about what had transpired, and they saw
Speaker 1: how the European press in particular had covered the FIFA scandal,
Speaker 1: I think they understood why it was a logical fit
Speaker 1: for the museum. As you've heard in this series, FIFA's
Speaker 1: sometimes criminal and moral and horrendous behavior isn't just centered
Speaker 1: around one person or the two thousand and fifteen corruption case.
Speaker 1: FIFA started as a racist organization under its European colonial
Speaker 1: minded founders, and then became a full fledged criminal enterprise
Speaker 1: under its boss Johavalang in the nineteen seventies. It's criminality
Speaker 1: only grew and expanded under the mild mannered Sep Bladder
Speaker 1: in the last fifty years. The men who have run
Speaker 1: FIFA have old right wing military junta's, turned a blind
Speaker 1: eye to gross human rights abuses, encourage rampants, sexism and
Speaker 1: vulgar misogyny, and oversaw a global system of money laundering,
Speaker 1: bribery and financial misdeeds. Today, FIFA would like you to
Speaker 1: believe the corruption, the sexism, the racism, the canoodling with
Speaker 1: authoritarian regimes, it's all a thing of the past, historical
Speaker 1: legacy of those other Let's not talk about them. They're
Speaker 1: gone now FIFA leaders, but the US Justice Department and
Speaker 1: Swiss prosecutors continue to issue indictments against FIFA and World
Speaker 1: Soccer executives in Among those indicted were two former senior
Speaker 1: sports executives from twenty first Century Fox and in November
Speaker 1: two thousand one, as you heard, step Ladder and former
Speaker 1: Way for President Michelle Platini were indicted in Switzerland, though
Speaker 1: a Swiss judge has since thrown the indictment out. Today,
Speaker 1: Gianni Infantine, current FIFA president, is under investigation by European authorities.
Speaker 1: So while the names have changed, FIFA really hasn't. Billions
Speaker 1: of people, including myself, will watch the World Cup in
Speaker 1: Many of us will think about the time we played
Speaker 1: the game as children. We'll put ourselves in the cleats
Speaker 1: of our favorite player. We'll be kids again on that
Speaker 1: grass pitch, that patch of dirt, just kicking the ball around.
Speaker 1: We will not think about those men in their finely
Speaker 1: tailored suits grabbing envelopes of cash and exchange for a
Speaker 1: crooked vote. But imagine if FIFA did what it said
Speaker 1: it should. Imagine if it used the power and passion
Speaker 1: for the beautiful game to make a better world. Maybe
Speaker 1: this podcast will be a small part of a much
Speaker 1: larger effort to bring about some meaningful reforms. As Mustafa
Speaker 1: Kadre told me, if sport is meant to be a
Speaker 1: public good, if it's meant to be a community activity,
Speaker 1: if it's meant to be ours, then we have to
Speaker 1: democratize it. It has to represent us. It has to
Speaker 1: represent our values. It can't just be a vehicle for
Speaker 1: making money. I believe there's hope. The indictments, the success
Speaker 1: of women's soccer, the growing voice of players speaking out
Speaker 1: against human rights violations. There's hope as long as a
Speaker 1: child somewhere, anywhere in the world kicks a ball and
Speaker 1: starts to play The Beautiful Game. The Lords of Soccer
Speaker 1: Al FIFA Stole the Beautiful Game is an Inside Voices
Speaker 1: Media production in conjunction with I Heart Radio. The series
Speaker 1: was written and executive produced by Gary Scott and me
Speaker 1: Connor Powell, Logan he Tell, and Katie mcmurran provided the
Speaker 1: sound design, with assistance from j C. Swaddick and Jake
Speaker 1: blue Note. Alec Cowen is our associate producer and Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Katz was our story editor. Our fact checker is Alexa
Speaker 1: O'Brien and thanks to Miles Gray, who produced the series
Speaker 1: for I Heart Radio. If you have any comments or questions,
Speaker 1: please reach out. You can find us on Twitter. I'm
Speaker 1: at Connor m. Powell and Gary is at Gary Robert
Speaker 1: Scott and if you have any stories about FIFA, let
Speaker 1: us know. If you like what you hear, please give
Speaker 1: us a shout out at the hashtag lords of soccer,