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/ENₛaudiₙationalityₛystem. pdf? MOD = AJPERES 4. CitationDorsey, “Qatar Announces. ” 5. International Trade Union Confederation, “List of affiliated organization, ” 2014, http: //www. ituc-csi. org/IMG/pdf/no₃6_-ₗistₐffiliates₁81113-2. 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? cuₙo = 2 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 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/relatedₐrticles/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.