Critics of Qatari sports, labor and foreign policy target its commercial interests

By James M. Dorsey

Opponents of Qatar’s foreign, sports and labor policies are striking at the Gulf state’s commercial interests in a bid to either force it to embrace reform or punish it for its support of Islamist groups.

Britain’s powerful GMB trade union called this week on British construction companies active in Qatar and particularly those bidding for 2022 World Cup-related projects not to exploit cheap migrant labor that has become a focal point of controversy over the Gulf state’s hosting of the one of the world’s foremost sporting events.

World soccer body FIFA was forced earlier this month to take the living and working conditions of migrant workers, who constitute a majority of Qatar’s population and 94 percent of its workforce, into consideration in its deliberations over whether to move the Cup from summer to winter because of the Gulf state’s extreme summer temperatures.

In a letter to the chief executive officers of 13 British companies, GMB international officer Bert Schouwenberg requested a meeting to discuss the issue. The companies on Mr. Schouwenberg’s list included the construction manager of London's Shard skyscraper, Mace, Heathrow Terminal Five builder Laing O' Rourke, FTSE 250 group Kier, Balfour Beatty which is advising Qatar on a $1 billion highways project and Interserve that was awarded $100 million worth of contracts to help the Gulf state exploit of its vast natural gas reserves.

“We believe that UK companies have a particular responsibility to ensure that their Qatar-based employees, regardless of their nationality, and their sub-contractors' employees enjoy terms and conditions within globally accepted standards of 'decent work' as laid down by organizations such as the International Labor Organization," Mr. Schouwenberg wrote. He charged that workers in Qatar "face quite appalling conditions, are treated little better than slaves and live in unacceptable squalid accommodation".

The GMB move is part of a campaign by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) to deprive Qatar of its World Cup hosting rights if it fails to improve working and living conditions and abolish its kafala sponsorship system which makes workers beholden to their employers.

British and other foreign contractors targeted by the unions are likely to point to the fact that on paper Qatari rules and regulations guarantee a host of workers’ rights in terms of working and living conditions but not the more politically loaded ones such as the right to form independent unions and bargain collectively. The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee, which is responsible for organizing the World Cup, as well as Qatar Foundation have this year adopted charters that go beyond Qatari law in recognizing workers’ rights.

In practice, Qatar has however lagged in implementing and enforcing its rules and regulations. The Qatar labor ministry admitted as much earlier this month when it pledged to significantly tighten oversight and increase the number of inspectors.

Qatar’s efforts to comply with calls for improved material conditions in a bid to resolve the issue and fend off the unions’ more political demands which touch on the viability of a tiny minority of nationals to retain absolute control of a country in which the vast majority of its residents have no rights and are essentially viewed as guest workers are undermined by high profile labor disputes involving international soccer players.

In the latest incident, French-Algerian international Zahir Belounis, was advised earlier this month that he could leave Qatar after being banned from travelling for two years because of a dispute with his club, Al Jaish, which is owned by the Qatari military. To leave, however, he would have to sign a statement that would effectively force him to forgo two years of outstanding salary payments.

Qatar’s inter-meshed commercial and political interests are also under attack in Egypt where the toppling in July of the elected Qatar-backed Muslim Brotherhood government of President Mohammed Morsi has soured relations between Mr. Morsi’s military backed successors and the Gulf state. The Egyptian Radio and Television Union, which controls state-owned broadcasters, effectively abrogated an agreement under which Al Jazeera, the state-owned Qatari television network, had bought the exclusive rights to African soccer championship matches.

“We will not observe the rights of Al Jazeera or abide by any judiciary provisions issued in its favor, since it has not respected the decision of Egyptian judiciary system and continued the activities of Al Jazeera Live Egypt in Egypt. This will not be limited to the Ghana-Egypt game, but will also include any game the Egyptian television wishes to broadcast. No one will be able to stop us,” said the union’s head, Essam al-Amir.

Mr. Al-Amir was referring to the banning of Al Jazeera’s local affiliate because of its alleged support for the Brotherhood. Al Jazeera has vowed to sue the union for its broadcasting of a recent African championship match between Egypt and Ghana in violation of the Qatari broadcaster’s rights to the game. Qatar’s troubled relations with Algeria were reflected in a similar dispute after Algerian television broadcast a match of its national team against Burkina Faso in violation of Al Jazeera’s rights.

Egypt last month, in a further indication of souring relations, returned to Qatar $2 billion after the two countries failed to agree on terms to convert the Qatari deposit in the Egyptian central bank into a bond.

Qatar’s efforts to use sports as a pillar of its soft power and a key building block in its foreign, defense and security policy in the absence of the ability to create the hard power it would need to defend itself are further undermined by perceptions that it is backing jihadist groups in the civil war in Syria. “Qatar, noted for its ‘hyperactive’ foreign policy, is so eager to acquire clients in the region that it has shown little concern for these groups’ intensely Islamist principles,” said Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow David Andrew Weinberg in a recent CNN commentary.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Soccer's Impact on Middle East Politics (JMD at WINEP)

Washington Institute for Near East Policy

PolicyWatch 2158

October 16, 2013

Featuring James M. Dorsey

Watch the video: http://washin.st/1aOkejP

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On October 15, James Dorsey, a syndicated columnist and author of the blog (and forthcoming book) "The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer," addressed a Washington Institute Policy Forum. The following is a rapporteur's summary of his remarks.

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Over the past several years, soccer fields across the Middle East and North Africa have become battlegrounds for political, gender, and labor rights, as well as issues of national, ideological, and ethnic identity. Examining the recent and historical role of militant soccer fans in Egypt, Jordan, Iran, and other countries can help shed light on where each society stands on these issues today.

Most soccer clubs in the region were established with some kind of political or ideological leaning, whether pro-colonial, pro-monarchy, nationalist, or other. In Egypt, two such clubs have had tremendous influence -- al-Ahly and Zamalek. The former was home to students who later became revolutionaries; President Gamal Abdul Nasser himself eventually led the club. In contrast, Zamalek was associated with pro-monarchy and pro-colonial movements. Today, the demography of the two fan bases has hardly changed. For example, celebrated Egyptian player Ibrahim Hassan described Zamalek as the "King's Club" in a 2010 interview, despite being born years after the overthrow of Egypt's last monarch.

The soccer pitch can also be a barometer of future events. In Jordan, statements openly critical of the royal family's corruption first gained notoriety on the soccer field. And at Saudi soccer matches, many princes are booed, pelted with various objects, and sometimes forced off the pitch entirely. Last year's removal of the head of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation was perhaps the first time a royal family member was forced to resign from a post due to public pressure.

Although soccer players themselves rarely engage in political protests, the sport evokes the kind of emotion that can spark such actions. In Iran, Tabriz's main soccer club has been a major symbol of Azerbaijani ethnic identity; most recently, it was the driving force behind demonstrations demanding reunification of Iran's East Azerbaijan province and the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. In Tehran, a ceremony held to commemorate deceased player Nasser Hejazi, who had been openly critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, turned into a mass antigovernment demonstration. Moreover, Iran's presidential elections often fall around the same time as its final World Cup qualifying matches; in some cases, celebrations of national team victories have led citizens to break social codes and hold antiregime protests.

Jihadist and theological leaders in the region look to soccer as a rallying tool well. Many Islamist mosques are affiliated with specific clubs, and militant figures such as Usama bin Laden, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh understand the role that the sport has played in recruiting followers and facilitating bonds between those who later carry out violence. At the same time, strong disagreement persists between hardline Islamist groups as to whether soccer is sanctioned under religious law. On one hand, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood considered forming its own club in 2011, while Hezbollah and other groups own and operate teams in Lebanon. On the other hand, the Somali group al-Shabab has been known to execute people just for watching soccer matches.

The sport has also been an important battleground for women's rights. Saha al-Hawari, the daughter of an Egyptian referee, worked to break down regional opposition to women's soccer by convincing families, clubs, and governments to allow women to organize their own teams. She also partnered with Jordan's Prince Ali in convincing the member states of the West Asian Football Federation to declare that women had an equal right to pursue soccer as a career.

RISE OF THE ULTRAS IN EGYPT

Around 2004-2006, passionate soccer fans in the Middle East connected with like-minded groups around the world who embraced absolute commitment to their clubs. These fans, called Ultras, saw players and coaches as opportunistic or corrupt; this and other factors spurred them to develop an especially strong sense of ownership over their clubs.

The growing influence of the Ultras challenged the power of some regimes, but also presented them with opportunities. Leaders such as Ahmadinejad, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and former Tunisian president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali sought close public association with national teams in order to harness their massive popularity. Mubarak in particular used the sport to deflect attention from government mismanagement and manipulate national emotions.

Meanwhile, Egypt's Ultras defiantly claimed ownership over their clubs, and by 2007, they were clashing with security forces on a weekly basis, whether at the stadium or elsewhere. By 2011, they represented tens of thousands of undereducated, unemployed young men who resented the regime and saw an opportunity to respond. Once the revolution began, Ultras played a key role in breaking the barrier of fear for the masses -- they approached Egyptians who had never spoken out against the government, brought them to demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and pressured them to remain once security forces cracked down.

Following Mubarak's ouster, the Ultras lost much of their public influence. Yet the February 2012 stadium brawl that killed seventy-four in Port Said reignited empathy toward the Ultras, sparking revolts in cities along the Red Sea and Suez Canal.

QATAR'S WORLD CUP CONTROVERSY

While other nations tend to bid on hosting the World Cup in order to project influence, create opportunities for their citizens, and improve infrastructure, Qatar's focus in seeking the 2022 Cup was security. After Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Qatar learned that it could not rely on the Saudi defense umbrella. And despite importing massive amounts of weapons and foreign personnel to staff its armed forces, the small emirate still lacks the hard power needed to defend itself. Soccer therefore represents a valuable soft-power tool and a boon to national security.

Yet Doha's successful World Cup campaign has been subjected to intense scrutiny. Although the country has major domestic issues, especially regarding labor, much of the controversy surrounding its bid has stemmed from envy and prejudice. Qataris did not expect the deluge of criticism they have received. After all, many in the international community remained silent for years regarding concerns about foreign workers in Qatar; powerful international trade federations did not truly assert themselves until after the country's bid gained momentum. In any case, the emirate is attempting to address these labor concerns, partnering with source countries such as Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to make sure migrants are not being exploited by middlemen.

Meanwhile, dismal attendance in Qatari soccer stadiums has prompted discussion of reform. Knowing that they are only temporary residents, the country's numerous foreign workers are less likely to become passionate fans, and many citizens are uninterested in supporting government-owned soccer clubs. This has spurred talk of transferring ownership from the state to publicly held companies. More broadly, the Qatari government is perhaps the first to try building a complete sports industry -- including sports medicine and sports security -- from the ground up. In doing so, it has tied sports to the emirate's burgeoning national identity.

The reforms being contemplated in Qatar may eventually spread to other Persian Gulf states with similarly unsustainable demographic challenges. For now, though, soccer's role in the Gulf will continue to create controversy. For example, FIFA may have erred in appointing Bahrain's Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa as president of the Asian Football Confederation despite his crackdown on athletes who participated in antigovernment protests. Yet there were really no good alternatives for the position.

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This rapporteur's summary was prepared by Jeremy Brinster.

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Qatar: Perfecting the art of scoring own goals

By James M. Dorsey

State-owned Qatari television network Al Jazeera prides itself on hard hitting, let-the chips-fall-where-they fall reporting. Yet, it has systematically avoided in recent days the one story that potentially could affect the very future, shape and security of the wealthy Gulf state: controversy over the timing of the 2022 World Cup and mounting criticism of living and working conditions of up to a million unskilled and semi-skilled workers expected to build infrastructure for the tournament.

That controversy could come to a head when the executive committee of world soccer body FIFA meets later this week to discuss the Qatari World Cup. Media reporting on and trade union agitation against often appalling conditions for foreign workers expected to be involved in the construction of tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure related to the tournament in a country in which local nationals constitute at best 15 percent of the total population and six percent of the workforce is likely to force FIFA to go beyond its initial focus: whether to move the competition from summer to winter because of Qatar’s searing summer temperatures that exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

Failure to address labor conditions in Qatar, involving both material issues such as a mounting number of work-related deaths, confiscation of passports and lack of access to basic amenities including drinking water as well as the onerous kafala or sponsorship system that makes workers beholden to their employees would open FIFA to allegations that it cares only about the welfare of several hundred players at the expense of hundreds of thousands creating the infrastructure they need.

British newspaper The Guardian reported this week that 70 Nepalese laborers had died in work-related incidents in the last 18 months. Other media reports said a further 159 Indian workers had also died since the beginning of this year. Narinra Bad, a representative of the Nepalese community in the Middle East, which accounts for the largest contingent of construction workers in Qatar, said however that only 15 Nepalese nationals had died since the beginning of this year, some of them of natural causes. Qatari officials also insisted that the numbers in media reports were exaggerated.

Nepalese trade union officials attributed many of the deaths to falls because workers had not been given proper safety equipment. International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) secretary general added that “scores are dying from heat exhaustion and dehydration after 12-hour shifts in blazing heat, often during the night in the squalid and cramped labor camps with no ventilation and appalling hygiene.”

Qatar’s problems were further compounded by an embarrassing salary dispute between French-Algerian international Zahir Belounis and Qatari army club Al Jaish that threatens to ruin the player’s career. Authorities have refused to allow Mr. Belounis to leave the country for some 18 months in line with the kafala system unless he first drops a legal case against the club.

The avalanche of negative reporting has aggravated FIFA’s dilemma. As the group sought to buy time by indicating that it would delay a decision on the timing of the Qatar tournament rather resolving the issue at this week’s executive committee meeting, FIFA ethics investigator Michael J. Garcia prepared to tour the nine countries that competed for the 2018 and 2002 World Cups. Some sources said they feared Mr. Garcia, a former New York prosecutor, may be intending to build a case against Qatar. Qatar has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in its bid that was far better funded than that of its competitors. In a column published on the website of Al Jazeera English and Insideworldfootball, London-based journalist Lee Wellings asked: “Is ‘Open Season’ on Qatar fair?”

FIFA vice president Jim Boyce told Reuters in a telephone interview: “We don't need to rush into this. The World Cup is still nine years away, we have plenty of time. But we also need to look very closely at the conditions of the immigrant workers who are building the infrastructure in Qatar and will be building the stadiums there for the World Cup. I was appalled and upset after last week's stories that dozens of immigrant workers had died as a result of the conditions in Qatar and that thousands of others are being ill-treated. We cannot allow that. These people must be protected and their basic human rights safeguarded."

What Qatar had expected to be a celebrated achievement in its projection of soft power when it won the World Cup hosting rights almost three years ago has turned into a public relations fiasco that spotlights existential questions about Qatar’s political and social system, its demographic viability and the sustainability of its national identity. Al Jazeera’s avoidance of the issue spotlights the fact that the fiasco is one of Qatar’s own making.

Al Jazeera’s lack of reporting goes far beyond restrictions on media in an autocratic state. It highlights the fact that Qataris remain hesitant to publicly engage their critics in a bid to demonstrate the fact that they take at least some of the criticism seriously and to explain issues that are in many ways unique to the region’s smaller family-run states. Qataris are learning the hard way that their failure to engage amounted to surrender of the battlefield to their opponents and more fundamentally that winning the right to host the World Cup enhanced their prestige but also exposed their warts and gave leverage to activists campaigning for a plethora of rights, including those of workers.

The Al Jazeera avoidance of a for Qataris sensitive issue further focuses attention on the problems smaller Gulf states have as they try to get a grip on a world in which technology and social media impose greater openness, public lack of confidence in institutions and leaders has toppled governments and the need to project soft power as part of a nation’s security and defense policy forces them to confront painful and existential issues.

First and foremost among these are foreign workers’ rights in a part of the world that traditionally strives to ensure that non-nationals were welcome to fulfill their contracts but would be prevented from gaining a stake in society. In responding to criticism by human rights and labor activists, Qatar has gone beyond issuing lofty statements of principle in a bid to address material concerns and fend off political demands, including abolishment of the kafala system and the granting of the right to form independent trade unions and bargain collectively.

To be sure, deflecting political issues is part autocratic reflex. It is however also a function of problems for which there are no easy solutions. Ray Jureidini, a sociologist and migration expert at Beirut’s Lebanese American University, who advised the Qatar Foundation on establishing standards for the full cycle of a foreign worker’s employment in Qatar, including recruitment, deployment, working and living conditions and return to country of origin, notes that abolishing of the kafala system would amount to a significant overhaul of the Qatari economy.

“The kafala system exists as part of an effort by Qataris to retain control of their country. Abolishing the system means opening up a labor market in a country where there is no labor market. The requirement for an exit visa is partly the result of Qatar not having extradition treaties with a lot of countries and wanting to prevent those who break the law from simply skipping the country,” Mr. Jureidini says.

The Australian-Lebanese scholar concedes that Qatar would do itself a favor by publicly acknowledging the issues it faces rather than by remaining silent projecting the notion of a nation that cruelly implements a system denounced by activists as modern slavery. The same is true of the reluctance by various Qatari institutions to freely discuss the details of steps they have or are taking to improve workers’ conditions including ensuring that workers do not pay for their recruitment – a key issue with vast numbers of laborers indebted for years to corrupt and unethical middlemen who arrange for their employment.

To be sure, Qatari’s existential issues do not justify harsh working and living conditions as reported by The Guardian recently. Yet, putting on the table the issues involved in resolving an intolerable situation would put the issue in perspective and allow the Gulf state to work with its critics in finding mutually acceptable solutions.

Qatari labor and social affairs minister Abdullah Saleh Al Khulaifi, in a rare instance of self-criticism, implicitly acknowledged that his government had been lax in implementing laws and regulations that human rights activists privately recognize afford workers significant protections. They include a ban on confiscation of workers’ passports after completion of immigration procedures, strict regulation of on-time payment of wages and working hours in periods of extreme heat, and guaranteed access to drinking water and proper healthcare.

Mr. Khulaifi said his ministry would increase the number of inspectors checking that companies are compliant with labor laws regarding healthcare, safety, living conditions and salaries; hire more translators to communicate with foreign workers; and establish branch offices in areas where foreign workers live.

Qatar has by and large been equally uncommunicative about the fact that criticism of its labor system since it won the World Cup has sparked internal debate. On the one hand, a recent study by the Social and Economic Survey Research Institute of Qatar University concluded that nine out of 10 Qataris favor kafala and that some 30 percent would like to see the system strengthened. Many Qataris, on the other hand, acknowledge privately that their country’s labor system is in desperate need of reform. Kafala, moreover, is disliked not only by employees but also by many employers because it makes them liable for whatever the worker does during and outside of working hours.

Qatar like the UAE has taken its first baby steps in nibbling at the edges of an issues that invokes fear of loss of identity and a national existence of one’s own. In a break with the tradition of ensuring that foreigners remain aware of the fact that their presence is temporary and conditional with no prospect of ever having a strong bond to or stake in Qatari society, Qatar Stars League (QSL) earlier this year organized its first ever soccer competition for 16 teams made up of foreign workers. It is looking at creating an annual league for 32 such clubs.  A Qatari sociologist went a step further, calling on Qatari sports clubs to open branches in areas where foreign workers live and scouting for talent in the labor community.

The significance of the move lies in the fact that soccer rivals religion in the Middle East and North Africa in the degree of deep-seated passion and identity that it evokes. In a city like Cairo prior to the toppling in 2011 of President Hosni Mubarak one was asked whether one was Zamalek or Ahli, the city’s two storied soccer clubs, rather than where one was from. As a result of the often almost tribal emotions that the game sparks, Gulf clubs preferred to play in empty stadia rather than cater to the majority foreign population and risk their development of an emotional tie to their country of temporary residence.

In a rare public discussion of demography by a Gulf national, Sharjah intellectual and businessmen Sultan Sooud al Qassemi said in a recent Gulf News article that “the fear of naturalization is that Emiratis would lose their national identity; we are after all a shrinking minority in our own country. However, UAE national identity has proven to be more resilient and adaptive to the changing environment and times than some may believe.”

Noting that the UAE had taken a first step, by granting the offspring of mixed Emirati-non-Emirati nationals 

the right to citizenship, Al Qassemi pointed out that Saudi Arabia, the one country in which local nationals constitute a majority, if only a small one, was the only country in the region to have legalized procedures for naturalization. Mr. Al Qassemi went however a step further noting that the success of the United States was in no small part due to the contribution of immigrants.

“Perhaps it is time to consider a path to citizenship for them that will open the door to entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and other hardworking individuals who have come to support and care for the country as though it was their own,” Mr. Al Qassemi said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerblog.

Harsh Qatari labor conditions move center stage as FIFA debates World Cup

By James M. Dorsey

Controversy over conditions for unskilled and semi-skilled workers in Qatar involved in the construction of World Cup-related infrastructure as well as for flight attendants of Qatar Airways, the 2022 tournament’s likely official carrier, has moved center stage as world soccer body FIFA prepares to debate next week the Gulf state’s hosting of the 2022 soccer tournament.

FIFA’s focus is on whether to move the tournament from summer to winter because of Qatar’s harsh summer temperatures that can exceed 40 degrees Celsius. FIFA however will find it difficult to maintain a narrow concern for the welfare of players with no regard to the army of workers involved in constructing billions of dollars in World Cup-related infrastructure. Beyond reputational damage, the debate over workers’ rights and conditions increases the risk of FIFA being pushed to entertain depriving Qatar of its hosting rights, a move that would be perceived by much of the Muslim world as anti-Arab and anti-Muslim.

International trade unions have for the past three years threatened a boycott of the World Cup if Qatar failed to improve labor conditions and accept workers’ rights to form independent trade unions and collectively bargain. The issue has taken on added urgency with a report in The Guardian that asserts that 44 workers had died in work-related incidents between June 4 and August 8 and that workers had not been paid, had their passports confiscated by employers, been denied access to free drinking water in the desert heat, and that 30 Nepalese had sought refuge at their embassy in Doha to escape the brutal labor conditions.

Adding to Qatar’s problems, the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITWF) lambasted this week Qatar Airways, the country’s national carrier, as well as United Arab Emirates carriers Emirates and Ettihad for prohibiting employees from organizing and demanding better working conditions. ITWF said it would lobby the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is meeting in Canada to take action against the Gulf carriers. The union objects to stipulations in Qatar Airways contracts that oblige employees to obtain company permission before changing their marital status and entitle it to fire women employees as soon as they become aware of a pregnancy.

Union objections on the grounds that Qatar bans independent labor organizations forced the Gulf state earlier this year to withdraw its proposal to move ICAO headquarters from Montreal to Doha. Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker was quoted by Arabian Business as saying at the time: “If you did not have unions you wouldn’t have this jobless problem in the western world… It is caused by unions making companies and institutions uncompetitive and bringing them to a position of not being efficient. If you go and ask the politicians in most of the countries in the western world they would love to have the system we have: where the workers have rights through the law but they do not have rights through striking and undermining successful institutions that provide jobs to their knees.”

Qatar Airways was last year the target of an online call for a boycott by hundreds of Qataris who objected to its employment policies as well as the fact that it operates a shop in Doha that sells alcohol and pork to foreigners.

Qatar has responded to international criticism of its labor conditions by seeking to improve working and living conditions, including stricter enforcement of timely payment of wages, limiting the number of workers permitted to live in one room, planning a city for foreign workers who account for 94 percent of the Qatari workforce and enhancing leisure opportunities, including the creation of a soccer league for foreign workers.

The Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee that is responsible for organizing the World Cup issued a Workers’ Charter earlier this year that pledged to meet international standards with the exception of the right to independent trade unions and collective bargaining. Qatar Foundation, the institution that funds educational and social projects, is working on a similar charter. It is also looking at streamlining recruitment to cut out middlemen and agents that charge onerous rates and are responsible for workers’ huge debt burden.

In a response to The Guardian story, the 2022 committee said: “Like everyone viewing the video and images, and reading the accompanying texts, we are appalled by the findings presented in The Guardian's report. There is no excuse for any worker in Qatar, or anywhere else, to be treated in this manner. The health, safety, well-being and dignity of every worker that contributes to staging the 2022 FIFA World Cup is of the utmost importance to our committee and we are committed to ensuring that the event serves as a catalyst toward creating sustainable improvements to the lives of all workers in Qatar.”

Qatari executives note that one offset of the awarding of the World Cup is the fact that workers’ rights and working conditions are on the table and that steps are being taken to address the situation. “While construction on work relating directly to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar has not yet commenced, we have always believed that hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar could be the catalyst for positive change, particularly for accelerating human and social development in Qatar,” the 2022 committee said. The committee said the government was investigating companies identified in The Guardian report.

Qatar has so far however refrained from steps to abolish the onerous Kafala or sponsorship system that makes employees virtually beholden to their employers a step that could convince trade unions and human rights activists that it is serious about reform. The Guardian report signals that on many of the issues such as timely payment, return of passports after completion of immigration procedures and access to water, Qatar is lagging in enforcement rather than in legislation and regulation.

The unanswered question is why Qatar has failed to tackle the Kafala system head on and allowed it to fester. Writing in Open Democracy, Michael Stephens, a researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Qatar, noted that a majority of Qataris acknowledge that their country’s labor system is in desperate need of reform. Kafala, moreover, is disliked not only by employees but also by many employers because it makes them liable for whatever the worker does during and outside of working hours. Mr. Stephens argues that authorities understand the need for change but are not giving it the priority required to stop further damage to Qatar’s reputation.

Yet, at the same time, he concedes that conservative forces and at least some business circles oppose abolishing kafala. “Business interests are often the hindrance, and the young Emir, like his father will need to work hard to combat those companies, including many western entities that accept and propagate the system that stands against the interests of a majority of the country, local and foreign alike,” Mr. Stephens wrote referring to 33-year old Sheikh Tamim bin Khalifa Al Thani who became emir in June after his father, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, abdicated.

A recent study by researchers of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar concluded that the cost of maintaining the labor system went beyond reputational damage. The researchers concluded that Qatar would be near the top of the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) if adjustments were made for the country’s large population of migrant workers. With other words, the system undercuts Qatar’s soft power effort designed to project the Gulf state as a cutting edge, 21st century knowledge-based society.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccerblog.

Decision to change date of Qatari World Cup risks political and legal rows

By James M. Dorsey

A pending decision in early October by world soccer body FIFA on whether to move the Qatar 2022 World Cup from summer to winter threatens to open debate on whether to deprive the Gulf state of its right to host one of the world’s two largest sporting events and could spark allegations of an anti-Arab bias.

The debate about the Qatari World Cup also focuses the spotlight on the incestuous relationship between politics and sports, a relationship that FIFA president Sepp Blatter in a rare acknowledgement, confirmed by charging that politics had prompted the eight European members of his 24-member executive committee to deliver eight of the 14 votes cast in favor of Qatar. The acknowledgement highlights the need to end denial of a fact of life and move to some form of governance of the relationship between sports and politics.

The debates have intensified as the FIFA executive committee prepares to discuss on October 3 and 4 a shifting the Qatari World Cup to winter because of searing summer temperatures in the Gulf state that exceed 40 degrees Celsius could affect the health and performance of players. Arsene Wenger, the storied manager of British Premier League club Arsenal, in a reflection of opposition by European clubs to a change of date, urged FIFA to stand by its original decision about but expressed concern about the impact of extreme heat on fans rather than players.

The debate about the timing of the tournament preempts a litmus test of cooling technology Qatar, the first Middle Eastern and Muslim state to be awarded World Cup hosting rights, says would make the holding the tournament in the summer feasible despite the heat. The technology which has been applied in small spaces is expected to be tested when Qatar completes in 2015/6 the first of up to nine stadia.

Potential legal challenges to any change of debate as well as a row between Mr. Blatter and the head of UEFA, the European soccer body, Michel Platini, a potential challenger to Mr. Blatter’s presidency in FIFA’s next presidential election scheduled for 2015, risk strengthening calls for a change of venue. Mr. Platini has backed calls for a shift from summer to winter.

Frank Lowy, head of the Australian Football Federation, one of several bidders defeated by Qatar, warned that a shift from summer to winter would be “tantamount to changing the rules after the contest is over." Mr. Lowy vowed to take legal action to reclaim taxpayers' money spent on the failed Australian bid would have been wasted if the federation had been campaign conducted under false pretenses.

FIFA’s corporate sponsors as well as broadcasters who bought rights for billions of dollars potentially could also seek legal redress. Fox TV together with Spanish language broadcaster Telemundo paid $1 billion for US television rights, a sum far higher than what they would have paid the United States’ National Football League. The two tournaments could overlap if the timing of the World Cup is changed.

Complicating the controversy over Qatar’s is Mr. Blatter’s assertion that European members of the FIFA executive committee had voted in favor of Qatar as a result of political pressure. In response, Mr. Platini, whose son is legal counsel for state-owned Qatar Sports Investments, became the first member to disclose that he had voted in favor of the Gulf state. Mr. Platini denied that his decision had been politically motivated.

Mr. Platini’s denial rang hollow given that his vote is widely believed to have been part of a three-way deal with Nicolas Sarkozy when he was president of France and former Qatari emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

As part of the deal QSI acquired Paris St. Germain (PSG), Mr. Sarkozy’s favorite team and pledged to step up already substantial investments in France. Qatar’s state-owned Al Jazeera television network would gaining rights to France’s Ligue 1 in another element of the deal that was forged over lunch at the Elysée Palace.

In an interview with Al-Monitor, Qatar’s ambassador to France, Mohamed Al Kuwari, explained at the time Qatar’s interest in France by saying that “you invest in France, you build partnerships and you go elsewhere, to Africa, to Asia. We are looking for strong partners like Total, Vinci, Veolia.” Moreover, he said, France, like Qatar charts its own course internationally. It “has an independent policy, plays an important role in the world, diplomatically and politically,” he said.

The World Cup so far has failed to pay Qatar the reputational dividend it had expected. Legal challenges and calls for depriving it of its hosting right could cause it further damage at a time that international trade unions and human rights groups are exploiting the tournament to pressure the Gulf state to substantially alter a migrant labor system they denounce as modern slavery. Foreign labor constitutes 94 percent of the Qatari labor force and a majority of the population.

The risk of reputational damage and a rift over perceived anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias is magnified in Qatar’s case by the fact that its sports investment strategy is key to its defense and security policy. Qatar, no matter how many sophisticated weapons it purchases, will never be able to defend itself. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait taught it two lessons. For one, big brother Saudi Arabia, unable to ensure its own defense, was an unreliable guarantor that depends on a US defense umbrella. Confidence in the reliability of the United States has however been called into question by the United States’ economic problems, its reluctance to engage militarily post-Iraq and Afghanistan and its likely emergence within a decade as the world’s largest oil exporter. Equally important, the international coalition that came to Kuwait’s aid demonstrated that soft power and embedment in the global community at multiple levels earns one friends when in need.

For Qatar, the message was clear. It vested its soft power in sports and particularly soccer even if it was a late convert to the beautiful game. Qataris first saw British oil workers in the 1940s play what they thought was an odd but amusing spectacle.  “We had no idea of sports like that … But we used to enjoy watching the strange spectacle,” recalled Ibrahim al-Muhannadi, a government official and member of the Qatar Olympic Committee.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Qatar 2022 – A mixed blessing

By James M. Dorsey

Winning the 2022 World Cup hosting rights has proven to be a mixed blessing for Qatar. The wealthy Gulf emirate, more than two years after world soccer body FIFA voted in Qatar’s favor, is under greater scrutiny than it ever has been and that it originally had bargained for. Qatar’s suitability as a host is being questioned, its labor system is under attack and some court decisions have earned it unfavorable publicity.

Writing in Arabian Business as FIFA prepares at an executive committee meeting in October to move the dates of the Qatari World Cup from summer to winter because of the emirates’ extreme temperatures in June and July, Gay Wright raised the specter of the unprecedented: “What if Qatar loses the 2022 World Cup?” That may be less far-fetched than meets the eye given that the losers in the race for the 2022 Cup – the United States, South Korea, Japan and Australia – could initiate legal action demanding a new vote on the grounds that a change of dates constitutes a change of the terms of the bid.

To be sure, the logic of granting Qatar the Cup made imminent sense. The Middle East and North Africa, a region where soccer has played a key role in national and social development since the late 19^thcentury, has never hosted the world’s biggest sporting event. Much of the argument against Qatar amounts to sour grapes, unjustified arrogance, and bigotry.

Debate about a change of dates has opened the door to renewed questions about the integrity of the bidding process at a time that FIFA has yet to convincingly argue that it has drawn lessons from the worst series of corruption scandals in its 108-year old history. Qatar plays into that in two ways: FIFA’s executive committee voted in favor of Qatar despite its experts having raised technical issues, including the question of summer temperatures that sore beyond the 40 degrees Celsius mark, and FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s own implicit admission that a FIFA investigation had been false when it concluded that Qatar had not engaged in vote swapping with Spain and Portugal, which were bidding jointly for the 2018 Cup. Blatter conceded in a BBC interview that there had been a vote swap agreement, but dismissed it because it had produced no advantage for either party.

The incident constitutes the only confirmed case of potential wrongdoing but says more about FIFA’s concepts of integrity and upholding rules and regulations than about Qatar. This is true for much of the other suspicions that have been expressed about Qatar’s bid, including possible incentives offered to national soccer federations represented on the FIFA executive committee as well as the fact that the Gulf state allocated a significantly larger budget to its bid campaign compared to its competitors. All of that may raise ethical issues, but only goes to demonstrate that FIFA’s bid rules have gaps in it similar to Emmenthaler cheese and a political deal with former French President Nicolas Sarkozy that led to Michel Platini, head of European soccer body UEFA, voting in favor of the Qatari bid.

If most countries bid for mega sporting events as country branding exercises and potential boosts to their economy, for Qatar the cost-benefit analysis in allocating funds was one that went to its core defense and security concerns. Qatar, no matter how many sophisticated weapons it purchases, will never be able to defend itself. The 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait taught it two lessons: big brother Saudi Arabia, unable to defend itself, is an unreliable guarantor. Confidence in the reliability of the United States has since also been called into question. The international coalition that came to Kuwait’s aid demonstrated that soft power and embedment into the global community at multiple levels earns one friends when in need. Qatar’s soft power is vested in sports and particularly soccer.

The ability to wield that soft power is proving to be more complex than Qataris expected. The sour grapes stemming from Qatar’s financial muscle, the arrogance of large nations seeking to delegitimize it on the grounds of it being tiny in population and territory, and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim prejudice threw up unexpected obstacles. So did the fact that the winning of the World Cup exposed Qatar to greater international scrutiny than ever before and made it more vulnerable to criticism by rights activists. The silver lining is that like the World Cup that imposes a timeline on Qatar’s massive infrastructure projects, it potentially offers the Gulf nation a straightjacket for inevitable social reforms.

Conditions for migrant labor that accounts for the majority of Qatar’s population has topped the agenda of activists with international trade unions and human rights groups threatening a boycott  of the World Cup and pressuring international infrastructure contractors to adopt global standards. The issue is more than simply capitalist exploitation or what the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) terms modern slavery. To Qataris, it is existential raising fundamental question about the nature, culture and identity of a society that is theirs but in which they constitute only 15 percent of the population. Ironically, Qatari leaders see sports as one way to strengthen national identity.

Nevertheless, the fact that the cost of maintaining an exploitative labor system and building walls between population groups goes beyond reputational damage was laid bare in a recent study by researchers of Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar published in Perspectives on Public Health. Their research concluded that Qatar would be near the top of the United Nation’s Human Development Index (HDI) if adjustments were made for the country’s large population of migrant workers. That conclusion cuts to the core of Qatar’s soft power effort to project itself as a cutting edge, 21^stcentury knowledge-based society.

Similarly, a string of recent court cases and labor disputes have cast a shadow over Qatar’s effort. Representatives of Asian American couple Matthew and Grace Huang imprisoned on charges of having murdered one of their three adopted black children argue that theirs is a “case of faulty science and what appears to be racial and cultural misunderstandings by the Qatari officials about American norms regarding international adoptions and homeschooling. The Qatari officials have to date refused to acknowledge that mistakes were made and the Huangs have been imprisoned in Qatar for nearly six months,” said Alex Jakubowski of Capitol Media Partners. The Huangs moved to Qatar so that Matthew could work on a World Cup-related infrastructure project.  

An investigation of the sudden death of their daughter Gloria of an eating disorder possibly due to malnutrition because of poverty before her adoption raised the Qatari authorities’ suspicion. “The police investigating Gloria’s death found the family situation inherently suspicious. For example, the investigative police reports repeatedly suggest that Matthew and Grace could not have had a legitimate reason to adopt children who were not ‘good-looking’ and who did not share their ‘hereditary traits. ’The investigative reports theorize that Matthew and Grace ‘bought’ their children in order to harvest their organs, or perhaps to perform medical experiments on them … It appears they did not know that adoptions of children from other countries and other racial backgrounds is common in the United States.,” Mr. Jakubowski said.

Earlier this year, employment-related complaints by two international players, one of whom was barred from leaving Qatar, threatened to overshadow the 2022 World Cup organizing committee’s release of a charter of worker’s rights designed to fend off criticism of labor conditions. In separate interviews French-Algerian player Zahir Belounis, who was locked into a salary dispute with Al Jaish SC, the club owned by the Qatari military, and Moroccan international Abdessalam Ouadoo, who left Qatar last November to join AS Nancy-Lorraine, complained about failure to honor their contracts and pay their salaries as well as ill treatment.

The legal issues play into the hands of Qatar’s distractors. Like with the criticism of Qatar’s labor conditions, the ball is in the Qatari court. It can adopt a defensive position seeking to counter the criticism or introduce reforms that would benefit its far more existential goal: embedment in the international community as a nation that is forging its own path in the 21^st century as a forward-looking, knowledge-based, equitable model in one of the most volatile parts of the world.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

Pressure for labor reform in Qatar increases amid calls to move World Cup to winter

By James M. Dorsey

Activists have stepped up calls for a boycott of the 2022 World Cup if Qatar fails to bring conditions for its majority foreign work force in line with international labor standards. The campaign seeks to exploit potential Qatari vulnerability at a time that world soccer body FIFA gears up to decide whether to move the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East and North Africa from summer to winter.

In a strengthening of the boycott campaign waged since Qatar was awarded World Cup hosting rights in late 2010 by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which has 175 million members in 153 countries, Anti-Slavery International this week declared its support for shunning the wealthy Gulf state.

“It would be a dreadful pity and an enormous shame on all of us if we are prepared to participate in a world cup that has been brought to us by slavery,” said Aidan McQuade, the group’s director.

ITUC secretary general Sharan Burrow said her organization was pressuring major companies from the United States, Britain, France and Brazil that were likely to win contracts for $75 billion worth of World Cup-related projects that include stadiums, rail and subway networks, hotels, and a new city that would house 200,000 people to incorporate workers’ rights in their bids. Foreign workers account for 94 percent of Qatar’s work force.

“It is awkward for Western countries who are promoting their businesses in the Gulf to talk about the rights of migrant workers who may be employed by westerners. There has to be a discussion about this,” said an Amnesty International spokesman, James Lynch.

ITUC has dismissed Qatar’s efforts to improve recruiting, working and social conditions because they fail to encompass internationally accepted principles of the right of collective bargaining and to form independent trade unions. Qatar’s 2022 Supreme Committee unveiled this spring a Workers’ Charter that would be binding on World Cup-related projects. The charter, a set of lofty principles, affirms the right of those working on projects “to be treated in a manner that ensures at all times their well-being, health, safety and security.”

Similarly, Qatar Foundation, has said that it was working on a charter of its own and was introducing sweeping measures that “can guarantee the rights of workers at all stages of the migration cycle − from the moment they are recruited and until they are repatriated to their home countries.” It said its charter and measures were “based upon a holistic and principled approach that combines Qatari Labor Law and international best practice.”

A key bone of contention with activists is the fact that Qatari labor law enshrines the principle of kafala or sponsorship, under which an employee is beholden to his employer. The ITUC has denounced the system that is common in the Gulf as modern slavery. The Supreme Committee has argued that its “commitment is to change working conditions in order to ensure a lasting legacy of improved worker welfare. We are aware that this cannot be done overnight. But the 2022 FIFA World Cup is acting as a catalyst for improvements in this regard.”

Anti-Slavery International joined the boycott campaign as the number of deaths of unskilled or semi-skilled workers in Qatar appeared to be on the rise. It also came as FIFA was gearing up for an executive committee meeting in October that would decide whether to move the 2022 tournament to the winter months because of Qatar’s overbearing summer temperature. The potential move has sparked calls for the Cup to be moved to another country.

The embassy of Nepal in Doha, whose nationals figure prominently in the construction sector that has been boosted by vast infrastructure projects, many of which are World Cup related, reported last month the highest spike so far in the number of deaths of Nepalese laborers. Of the 32 who perished in July, 13 workers in their 20s died of a cardiovascular disease; 11 others were killed in road incidents and another eight in work-related accidents, the embassy’s second secretary, Harihar Kant Proudel, told Doha News.

“There have been cases where we have suspected that there has been a mutual understanding between the doctor and the company, and the doctor has made a false report saying that they died of cardiac arrest – it is easier for a company to say they died of that,” Mr. Proudel said. He attributed the deaths to the fact that “many workers are going without meals, and without enough water, then they are working in high temperatures all day. The weather here is different from our country. Our nationals are not used to it.”

Mr. Proudel’s assertions stroked with conclusions of a recent study in the Journal of Arabian Studies that listed late wages, significant debts accrued to pay labor brokers, and inconsistent access to healthcare as common problems encountered by foreign workers in Qatar. Funded by the Qatar National Research Fund, the study, entitled APortrait of Low-Income Migrants in Contemporary Qatar, said that 56 percent of the workers interviewed reported not having received a government-mandated Hamad health card, needed to access free healthcare. Qatar University meanwhile reported that the vast majority of employers in Qatar illegally confiscated workers’ passport at the outset of their employment.

Source: Arabian Studies Journal

The issue of workers’ rights touches on one of Qatar’s most existential issues: demography. Qataris account for approximately 15 percent of their country’s population. A recent report by the Doha-based Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies, ‘Foreign Labor and Questions of Identity in the Arabian Gulf,’ concluded that fears that any degree of integration of foreigners would threaten family-run Qatar’s political, cultural and social identity made change unlikely.

Source: Arabian Studies Journal

“The issues touches upon the essence of the question of the transition towards a ‘citizenship society. … In the absence of the establishment of a modern state based on the bond of citizenship, justice, the rule of law, and equal opportunity among all components of society, it is extremely difficult to assimilate immigrants. … The Gulf countries, due to the delay in the construction of the modern state on the institutional, legal and constitutional levels, have extreme difficulties integrating the population of their home societies – let alone assimilating immigrants,” the report said.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog.

UAE exploits soccer to counter charges of human rights abuse

By James M. Dorsey

The recent sentencing in the United Arab Emirates of scores of dissidents on charges of plotting to overthrow the government and UAE support for the military coup that ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has sparked assertions that the country is using its acquisition of Manchester City and a franchise to establish a New York-based Major League Soccer team to polish an image increasingly tarnished by autocratic and counterrevolutionary policies.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) in statements to The Guardian newspaper warned that the UAE was using soccer to launder its image. Former English Football Association chairman Lord Triesman has called for making a country’s human rights record one of the criteria for establishing whether a state entity or member of a ruling family passes the "fit and proper person test" for ownership of a Premier League club.

HRW along with Amnesty International, the Emirates Centre for Human Rights and prominent human rights lawyers and activists like Sir Geoffrey Robertson condemned the mass trial of 94 people of which 69 were sentenced to lengthy prison terms as unfair and a violation of due process because a denial of legal assistance while being held incommunicado pretrial, allegations of torture, and the lack of a right to appeal. In its response, the UAE justice ministry implicitly did not rule out torture, arguing that alleged victims should have reported abuse to the police.

The defendants, who include lawyers, teachers and academics, were accused of being Muslim Brothers. Deeply hostile to the group, the UAE backed the military coup against Mr. Morsi that has thrown Egypt into crisis and has since together with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait bankrolled the military-appointed successor of the ousted president. The backing was part of a larger Saudi-dominated effort to stymie the wave of protest and revolt that has been sweeping the Middle East and North Africa for more than two years. The Brotherhood last week rejected a mediation attempt in Egypt by a senior US official as well as the foreign ministers of the UAE and Qatar, the only Gulf state to back the group.

HRW researcher Nicholas McGeehan, describing the UAE as "a black hole" for basic human rights, told The Guardian that "In this situation, a Premier League club (Manchester City) is being used as a branding vehicle to promote and effectively launder the reputation of a country perpetrating serial human rights abuses. That should be of concern to football supporters as well as human rights organizations." The paper quoted Human Rights Watch as saying further that Abu Dhabi’s purchase of Manchester City enabled it to "construct a public relations image of a progressive, dynamic Gulf state, which deflects attention from what is really going on in the country".

The portrayal of acquisitions of prominent soccer clubs as an effort to launder a country’s reputation casts a shadow over a foreign and security policy as well as a soft power strategy deployed by both the UAE and Qatar that is designed to endear themselves to a Western public and embed themselves in the international community in a way that would ensure support in times of need. Both countries recall the success of Kuwait, another small Gulf state incapable of defending itself, in rallying the international community in 1990 and 1991 to force the withdrawal of invading Iraqi forces.

The linking by human rights activists of the acquisition of Western soccer clubs to the human rights record of the home countries of a buyer is closely linked to the emergence of mega-events like the World Cup which will be hosted by Qatar in 2022 as platforms for campaigns for human, labor and gender rights.

In addition to the World Cup, Qatar has bought Paris St. Germain while its state-owned global broadcaster, Al Jazeera, has secured rights for the Premier League as well as the French and the Italian soccer competitions. The network has further launched a sports network in the United States and is about to launch a 24-hour US-based news channel.

Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of the UAE’s ruling family, bought Manchester City in 2008. The sheikh is UAE deputy prime minister and minister of presidential affairs, a brother of Abu Dhabi crown prince and deputy supreme military commander Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and a half-brother of UAE president Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan. He is also responsible as chairman of the Abu Dhabi judiciary for the court that convicted the dissidents.

UAE officials have insisted that the acquisition of Manchester City as well as this year’s agreement to invest in the creation of a 20^th Major League Soccer team was a personal rather than a government investment. Most analysts however, given the al-Nahyan’s grip on state affairs, take that assertion with a grain of salt. Manchester City has won since the acquisition sponsorship from major Abu Dhabi or UAE state institutions, including airline Etihad, telecommunications company Etisalat, investment company Aabar and the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority.

Neither the UAE nor Qatar initially realized that the deployment of soft power using soccer would also entail that they would become more vulnerable to criticism of their adherence to human and other rights. So far, Qatar, despite foreign policy setbacks as a result of its backing of the Brotherhood and other Islamist forces, has proven more adept in deflecting the criticism, particularly on the issue of the rights of foreign workers, who constitute a majority of the population in both countries.

The Gulf state has until now been able to fend off demands by international trade unions that it allow the formation of independent workers’ organizations and endorse the principle of collective bargaining by taking far reaching steps to improve material working and living conditions. Qatar Foundation, a state-owned body focused on education and research, has adopted rules that oblige contractors to pay a worker’s ticket to Qatar from his or her home country and give employees three weeks’ vacation a year. Qatar is also looking at an overhaul of the recruitment system that would shield workers from becoming indebted to agents who charge exorbitant fees. The UAE and other Gulf states have sought to reform their foreign labor system, but to a lesser extent than Qatar.

James M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg, and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Soccer fans in the Gulf vote with their feet

Soccer fans vote with their feet

By James M. Dorsey

Soccer is defeating efforts by wealthy, football-crazy Gulf states to impregnate themselves against the wave of protests that have swept the Middle East and North Africa in the past two years and sparked a brutal civil war in Syria.

Once a prince’s uncontested playing ground that allowed royals to curry favor, strengthen their families grip on power and ensure that the soccer pitch did not become a platform for social and political protest, the beautiful game is emerging as the one arena that so far has proven immune to efforts by Gulf rulers to keep demands for change at bay.

In fact, fans are voting with their feet. Not in mass protests as those that toppled the leaders of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, but by staying away from matches. What effectively amounts to a fan boycott, is most evident in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the one Gulf state that boasts nationals as a majority of its citizens who in the past filled stadiums. At a recent match in a dilapidated stadium in Doha, barely a hundred people showed up to watch.

In staying away, fans are demonstrating that stadiums in the smaller Gulf states where local nationals account for at most some 40 percent of the population – in the United Arab Emirates that number drops to 15 and in Qatar to just over 20 percent – are not simply empty because of a lack of bodies and a politically inspired refusal to attract non-nationals out of fear that foreigners binding with a local club could open the Pandora Box of them viewing their host country as more than just a place to earn money and leave at the end of their contract.

Dropping stadium attendance numbers in Saudi Arabia in contrast to the smaller Gulf states has at first glance much to do with poor performance and decaying infrastructure as a result of lack of investment. The drop contrasts starkly with efforts three years ago by the Saudi clergy to persuade fans to fulfill their daily prayer rituals during World Cup matches by sending trucks to serve as makeshift prayer rooms in front of Internet cafes where men gathered to watch a game.

Irrespective of demography, the drop in soccer attendance is at the bottom line proving to be more than just a question of numbers or poor performance and infrastructure and one of an unspoken resistance to control by royal autocrats. As a result, countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar are looking at restructuring ownership of their premier league clubs to put an unprecedented distance between members of the ruling elite and the game.

Qatar, which is preparing to become the first Middle Eastern and North African state to host a World Cup, the world’s largest sporting event, has taken the lead in restructuring the region’s soccer and building world-class infrastructure out of both the need for massive infrastructure and the fact that the 2022 tournament has put it in the spotlight. It’s hosting of the World Cup when Middle Eastern and North African nations want to demonstrate their region’s soccer prowess has also driven home the need for countries to create the conditions for enhanced performance.

Like Saudi Arabia, Qatar is looking at transferring ownership of clubs owned or effectively controlled by royals. In Qatar, where officials concede that nationals no longer want to watch ‘the sheikh’s club’ play, are looking at the possibility of transferring clubs to state-owned companies, while the kingdom where clubs are government-owned is drafting a plan to privatize them.

Qatar, under pressure from international trade unions that are campaigning to deprive it of its right to host the World Cup, is seeking to improve the much criticized work and living conditions of foreign workers who constitute a majority of the population. Its moves – adoption by the World Cup organizing committee of a charter of workers’ rights, greater safety and security controls and enhanced facilities – fall short of union demands for independent trade unions and collective bargaining.

But the reforms have led to the first chip in barriers erected to ensure that foreigners leave the country once their contracts have been fulfilled. The Qatar Stars League last month organized the first competition for 16 clubs founded by foreign workers and is looking at establishing a league for foreigners that would group 32 clubs. A Qatari sociologist has gone a step further calling on Qatari clubs to establish branches in areas populated by foreign workers.

The Qatari moves follow a program rolled out two years ago by Al Jazeera FC of Abu Dhabi that targeted foreigners by offering them football as well as entertainment. The program, sweetened by a lottery prize of one million dirham ($272,000) and a Ferrari at its final game of the season, helped Al Jazeera quadruple match attendance to 20,000, one of the highest attendance figures in the Gulf.

Protest against performance and royal interference has had the most far-reaching effect in Saudi Arabia where princes are known to phone during a match to for example order the change of a player. In an unprecedented move in a soccer-crazy region in which rulers see political control of sports as essential, fan pressure forced Prince Nawaf bin Feisal, the former head of the Saudi Football Federation, to last year become the first royal to resign from leadership of a sports association. The resignation followed Australia’s defeat of the Saudi national team in a 2014 World Cup qualifier.

The move paved the way for a rare election in a nation that sees free and fair elections as an inappropriate Western concept and the takeover of the federation by a storied former goalkeeper, known to be a reformer and a proponent of women’s soccer in a country that frowns on women’s sports. For now, Prince Nawaf and the Saudi royal family retain their control of soccer through the Saudi Olympic Council and the General Presidency of Youth Welfare which the prince continues to chair.

Columnist Mohammed AlSaif, writing in the Arab News immediately after the election said: “Words such as freedom of choice, equality, human rights, rational thinking, democracy and elections, are terms we came to view with high concern and suspicion. We treat them as alien ideas that are trying to sneak within our society from the outside world. But last week an amazing and irregular event took place, in one of our sporting landmarks. The members of the General Assembly of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) have elected through popular voting, their first president … Saudis were witnessing for the very first time in their lives a government official being elected through what they used to consider as a western ballot system.”

As part of the kingdom’s first five-year national sports plan that is being drafted albeit for men only, Prince Nawaf’s youth welfare presidency is proposing to privatize Saudi soccer clubs, use the proceeds to improve the country’s infrastructure and restructure its league with the English Premier League as its model. The new league would be able to increase revenues from broadcast rights – a commercial undertaking which is still in its infancy in the Middle East and North Africa and has so far benefitted state-owned broadcasters like Qatar’s Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi Television that have deeper pockets than their private sector competitors.

"We are not only trying to make money, the aim of what we are trying to do is raise the level of sports in Saudi and in order to do so I think you need to have healthy club financials so they can afford to bring the best coaches, the best foreign players. And when you raise the level of Saudi clubs, you raise the level of the national team," said Prince Abdullah bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who heads the committee planning the restructuring, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog

Players’ complaints overshadow Qatari attempts to project improved workers’ rights

By James M. Dorsey

Employment-related complaints by two international players, one of whom is barred from leaving Qatar, threaten to overshadow the 2022 World Cup organizing committee’s release of a charter of worker’s rights designed to fend off criticism of labor conditions in the Gulf state.

In separate interviews French-Algerian player Zahir Belounis, who is locked into a salary dispute with Al Jaish SC, the club owned by the Qatari military, and Moroccan international Abdessalam Ouadoo, who left Qatar last November to join AS Nancy-Lorraine, complained about failure to honor their contracts and pay their salaries as well as ill treatment.

The Qatar Stars League, the country’s premier league, did not respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Belounis is locked into a court battle with AL Jaish to get payment of almost two years of unpaid salary. He has been barred from leaving the country in a bid to force him to settle for faction of what is owed to him. “This is a crazy story… I cannot move around freely, I cannot work anymore, I'm 33 years old ... Who wants a player who has not played for months? Frankly, my career takes a hit,” he told Jeune Afrique.

In an interview with the BBC’s World Football, a clearly angry Mr. Ouadoo, who is owed five months’ salary, denounced the alleged refusal of Qataris to honor contracts. “The Qataris showed me no respect and I can never forgive them for that. I know that money is king but you don’t treat a man like that without paying a price,” Mr. Ouadoo said, asserting that he had been “treated like a slave.”

Mr. Ouadoo said he was barred last summer from joining his club for three weeks of training in Spain. Instead, he was forced to train in the Gulf state’s excruciating summer heat when temperatures go up to 50 degrees Celsius “just to push me to forget my rights. They did everything to discourage me…. The Qataris think they can do everything because they think money can buy anything: buildings, jazz, beautiful cars and men… Human rights are not respected. Human beings are not respected. The workers are not respected. A country that does not respect all these things should not organize the World Cup 2022,” Mr. Ouadoo said.

International players union FIFPro Africa division secretary general Stephane Burckhalter, whose group reportedly is investigating Mr. Belounis’ case, said about Mr. Ouadoo’s experience: “Nothing can justify this. These practices are shocking, unacceptable and outrageous.” Added a prominent soccer consultant: “Belounis’ case is typical for Qatar: contract then falling out of favor, then pressure to leave without being paid, passport withdrawn, etc...”

Mr. Ouadoo employed the very language the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is using in a bid to persuade world soccer body FIFA to deprive Qatar of its right to host the World Cup by –re-running the December 2010 vote that awarded it to the Gulf state. The ITUC campaign follows two years of intermittent talks with Qatar with no agreement on demands that it endorse the principles of independent trade unions and collective bargaining, sensitive issues in a country in which foreign labor constitutes the vast majority of the population.

The complaints of Messrs Belounis and Ouadoo could not have come at a worse moment for Qatar. They coincided with the unveiling by Qatar’s 2022 Supreme Committee Workers’ Charter that would be binding on World Cup-related projects. The charter, a set of lofty principles, affirms the right of those working on projects “to be treated in a manner that ensures at all times their well-being, health, safety and security.”

Qatar Foundation, in a statement three days before the release of the charter, said it was working on a charter of its own and was introducing sweeping measures that “can guarantee the rights of workers at all stages of the migration cycle − from the moment they are recruited and until they are repatriated to their home countries.” It said its charter and measures were “based upon a holistic and principled approach that combines Qatari Labor Law and international best practice.”

Qatari labor law that enshrines the principle of kafala or sponsorship, under which an employee is beholden to his employer and that is at the root of the restrictions on freedom of movement that Messrs Belounis and Ouadoo experienced has long been criticized by human rights groups and is one key reason why the unions have turned on the Gulf state.

In a statement the 2022 Supreme Committee said that “our commitment is to change working conditions in order to ensure a lasting legacy of improved worker welfare. We are aware that this cannot be done overnight. But the 2022 FIFA World Cup is acting as a catalyst for improvements in this regard.” The statement said monitoring and enforcement of the committee’s charter would be key once construction of stadiums and other infrastructure begins.

Up to half a million workers were likely to be recruited for projects according to a recent estimate by Qatar labor undersecretary Hussain Al Mulla. Mr. Al Mulla appeared to be cutting back radically on earlier predictions that Qatar would be importing up to a million workers. A Bank of America Merrill Lynch research note reported that Qatar was negotiating with FIFA to reduce the number of venues for the tournament from 12 as proposed in its bid to eight or nine.

Labor conditions “is a matter of utmost importance for all those involved in the organization of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar 2022. We have always acknowledged that the current state of workers’ welfare needs to be improved. From the very beginning, we have pointed to the power of football as a tremendous catalyst for tangibly improving labor conditions in Qatar and the region at large. From day one, we have been working towards this objective with much care and great dedication to ensure that this is a key legacy of our tournament,” the committee statement said.

A committee spokesperson said in an email that “the Charter is a starting point of reference. It is important to point out that progress and developments are taking place on a daily basis in Qatar. The Charter is only one aspect of a larger mosaic of change.”

The statement described the ITUC appeal to FIFA as ‘disingenuous’ and charged that “this campaign is counterproductive and not in the spirit of collaboration.” The ITUC cited earlier the fact that it had not been consulted on the Supreme Committee’s charter as one of the reasons why it was now seeking to deprive Qatar of the hosting of the World Cup.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog