FIFA should compensate victims of World Cup preparations, MEPs say

Members of the European Parliament adopted a decision on Thursday condemning the deaths of migrant staff throughout preparations for the 2022 FIFA World Cup event in Qatar.

The lawmakers referred to as on the worldwide soccer governing physique FIFA to contribute to a remediation programme for staff’ households as compensation and urged Qatari authorities to conduct investigations into the deaths of migrant staff.

MEPs described the corruption of FIFA as “rampant, systemic and deep-rooted” and criticised the method to award the event to Qatar as missing transparency.

It is broadly quoted that 6,500 migrant staff have died since Qatar was awarded the World Cup in 2010.

In keeping with the UN, that is the determine for all deaths, not simply these at work or whereas engaged on stadium-building initiatives. Qatar says there have been 37 deaths “immediately linked to the development of World Cup stadiums”. 

The parliament urged EU nations with massive soccer leagues to exert strain to “essentially reform FIFA,” in line with a press release from the parliament.

“This would come with introducing democratic and clear procedures when awarding soccer World Cups and strictly implementing human rights and sustainability standards for internet hosting nations.”

Euronews has reached out to FIFA in regards to the name for compensation however that they had not responded on the time of publication.

Within the decision, MEPs welcomed that the Qatari authorities had reimbursed wage abuse victims, in line with the Worldwide Labour Organisation, however MEPs regretted that “many staff in Qatar and their households have been excluded” from the scope of the fund.

In an interview with AFP earlier this month, the nation’s labour minister Ali ben Samikh Al-Marri rejected calls from NGOs for a compensation fund, mentioning that there was already a fund to compensate wages that paid €320 million to staff in 2022.

The EU’s well being commissioner Stella Kyriakides mentioned throughout the European Parliament debate on Monday that the “human rights path for Qatar is way from full and as for every other nation it’s a journey that may proceed that may by no means be completed and quite a few challenges stay.”

She mentioned the EU would proceed to look at the human rights scenario there intently.

The World Cup started this week and can proceed till 18 December 2022.