The 2022 World Cup: A Potential Monkey Wrench for Change

AbstractThe controversial awarding to Qatar of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the world's most important sporting event alongside the Olympic Games, has emerged as a potential monkey wrench for social and political change. The tournament has to the Qataris' surprise given international trade unions, human rights groups and a reluctant governing world soccer body, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), leverage they lacked prior to the awarding to pressure Qatar to radically reform the Gulf state's long-criticised labour system. It has also offered critics of the awarding of the event a stick with which to beat Qatar. In response, Qatar has pledged significant reform in a bid to secure achievement of its soft and subtle power goals and fend off demands that would fundamentally alter its political and social structures. In doing so, it is walking a tightrope, balancing the soft power-dictated need to embed itself favourably at multiple levels in the international community and defeat the mounting threat of losing the right to host the World Cup with maintaining a socially and politically restrictive system whose long-term viability is being called into question.Keywords:: labour rightsQatartrade unionssecuritydefence Notes 1. Qatar's 2010 census figures reported 74,087 economically active Qataris over the age of 15 and 1,201,884 economically active non-Qataris. Census 2010, pp. 12–3, 19, Qatar Statistics Authority, www.qsa.gov.qa 2. The Peninsula, “Qatar needs one million foreign workers for 2022 projects: ILO,” October 15, 2012, http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/qatar/210816/qatar-needs-one-million-foreign-workers-for-2022-projects-ilo 3. Ministry of the Interior of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, “Saudi Arabian Citizenship System,” September 23, 1954, http://www.moi.gov.sa/wps/wcm/connect/121c03004d4bb7c98e2cdfbed7ca8368/EN_saudi_nationality_system.pdf?MOD = AJPERES 4.CitationDorsey, “Qatar Announces.” 5. International Trade Union Confederation, “List of affiliated organization,” 2014, http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/no_36_-_list_affiliates_181113-2.pdf 6. “Text Hassan al Thawadi Speech - Leaders in Football 2011,” Gulf Times, October 7, 2011, http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no = 2&item_no = 462347&version = 1&template_id = 36&parent_id = 16 7.CitationCummings, “Damned if They Do.” 8.CitationCalvert and Blake, “Plot to Buy the World Cup.” 9.CitationDorsey, “Qatar Unwittingly Forces.”10. , “Doha Forced to Break Silence”; CitationGibson, “Paralysed in Qatar”; and CitationPattisson, “Revealed: Qatar's World Cup.”11. International Trade Union Confederation, “Qatar 2022 World Cup risks 4000 lives, warns International Trade Union Confederation,” September 27, 2013, http://www.ituc-csi.org/qatar-2022-world-cup-risks-400012.CitationDoward, “Qatar World Cup.”13.CitationDorsey, “Mounting Workers' Deaths.”14. Ibid.15.CitationGardnera et al., “A Portrait of Low-Income Migrants.”16. Interview with the author January 18, 2013.17.CitationDorsey, “Critics of Qatari Sports.”18.CitationMamtani et al., “Impact of Migrant Workers.”19. US Embassy Doha (Qatar), “The Next 3 Years–an Interagency Field Assessment Of Key Trends And Strategic Challenges In Qatar,” September 16, 2008, http://cablegatesearch.wikileaks.org/cable.php?id = 08DOHA664&q = qatar%20saudi20.CitationDorsey, “Qatar to Legalize.”21. Ibid. US Embassy Doha (Qatar).22. US Embassy Doha. The Move Toward an Interagency Synchronization.23. Interview with the author, October 2, 2013.24.CitationHanieh, Capitalism and Class, 60–6.25. Qatar's 2010 census figures reported 74,087 economically active Qataris over the age of 15 and 1,201,884 economically active non-Qataris. Census 2010, 12–3, 19, Qatar Statistics Authority, www.qsa.gov.qa26.Citational Kuwari, “The People Want Reform.”27. Ibid.28. Saqer Almarri, “Reforming Law and Culture for Migrants' Rights: an Interview with Bahrain Trade Union Leader Karim Radhi, Migrant Rights,” June 16, 2014, http://www.migrant-rights.org/research/we-need-to-revise-our-khaleeji-culture-in-order-to-change-the-realities-faced-by-migrant-workers-an-interview-with-bahrains-union-leader-karim-radhi/29.CitationAlnajjar, “Foreign Labor and Questions.”30. Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy, “SC Workers' Standards Edition 1,” February 11, 2014 email to the author from the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy31.CitationBisson, “MEPs Lobby for Qatar.”32.CitationDorsey, “Qatar Likely to Reform.”33. Qatar Foundation, “QF Mandatory Standards of Migrant Workers' Welfare for Contractors and Sub-Contractors,” 2013, Qatar Foundation, Sent to author by a drafter of the document.34.CitationBreeding, “India-Gulf Migration.”35. Ibid.36. Ibid.37. Ibid.38. Author interviews with human rights and trade unions activists in the period 2011–2014.39.CitationDorsey, “Mounting Workers' Deaths.”40. Ibid.41.http://mideastsoccer.blogspot.sg/2014/02/mounting-workers-deaths-increase.html42.CitationDorsey, “Workers' Welfare in Qatar.”43. Ibid.44. Author interviews with Qatari officials on February 12, 2014.45. International Trade Union Confederation, “The case against Qatar,” March 14, 2014, http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/web_qatar_the_case_against_qatar_march_2014_en_web.pdf/; CitationDorsey, “Qatar Labour Controversy.”46. State of Qatar Labour Reform Press Release, “Qatar Abolishes Kafala Introduces Wide-Ranging Labour Market Reforms,” May 14, 2014, sent to the author by the Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy.47.CitationDorsey, “Qatar Misses the Plank on Labour Reform.”48. DLA Piper, Migrant Labour in the Construction Sector in the State of Qatar, April 2014. http://www.engineersagainstpoverty.org/documentdownload.axd?documentresourceid=5849.CitationGhosh, “Qatar Workers' Deaths.”50. Kathmandu Post, “Job security in the Gulf,” January 16, 2014, http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2014/01/16/related_articles/job-security-in-the-gulf/258266.htmlAdditional informationNotes on contributorsJames M. DorseyJames M. Dorsey is a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He is also co-director of the University of Würzburg's Institute for Fan Culture, and the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog and a forthcoming book with the same title.