QATAR HAS REJECTED calls for a compensation fund for migrant workers killed or injured during World Cup preparations, with the country’s labour minister calling it a “publicity stunt”.
Labour Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri told AFP that Qatar is already handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages, and accused the Gulf state’s critics of “racism”.
Marri said Qatar already has a fund to deal with worker deaths and injuries.
“This call for a duplicative Fifa-led compensation campaign is a publicity stunt,” he said in an exclusive interview. “Our door is open. We have dealt with and resolved a lot of cases.”
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have led demands for Fifa and Qatar to create a fund for workers matching the $440 million World Cup prize money.
Human rights groups accuse Qatar of under-reporting deaths. The government strongly disputes reports that thousands have died on construction site accidents or from heat-related illnesses in the country’s searing summer temperatures.
Fifa has said there is “ongoing dialogue” about the fund, but in the government’s first public comment, Marri said the proposal was unworkable.
“Every death is a tragedy,” Marri said on Sunday, adding: “There is no criteria to establish these funds.
“Where are the victims, do you have names of the victims, how can you get these numbers?” he asked.
Some international trade union leaders have also said a new fund would be too complicated to set up and manage.
Qatar started a Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund in 2018 to help workers who have not been paid, which the minister said had disbursed $320 million this year alone.
“If there is a person entitled to compensation who has not received it, they should come forward and we will help them,” he said, adding that Qatar was ready to look at cases from more than a decade ago.
Qatar has faced a barrage of criticism since it was named as a surprise World Cup host in 2010, and attacks have increased this year over migrant workers, LGBTQ freedoms and women’s rights.
Last month, Qatar’s emir said the country was facing an “unprecedented campaign” of criticism ahead of the November 20 kick-off.
Marri said detractors had ignored reforms implemented since 2017 with the help of the International Labour Organization, a UN agency.
Other countries and groups have used “false information” and “rumours” to “discredit Qatar with deliberately misleading claims”, he said.
Marri added that some foreign politicians deployed “double standards” and used Qatar “as an arena to solve their own political problems”.
The minister did not give an example, but Qatar last week summoned the German ambassador over comments made by the country’s interior minister.
Some critics also acted through “racism”, Marri claimed.
“They don’t want to allow a small country, an Arab country, an Islamic country, to organise the World Cup,” he said.
“They know very well about the reforms that have been made, but they don’t acknowledge it because they have racist motivations.”
The government has established a minimum wage of 1,000 riyals (€277) a month, and passed laws against trafficking and limiting the hours that can be worked in extreme heat.
Marri said 420,000 workers have switched jobs since the laws were passed and $320 million has been paid out this year alone to workers who had lost wages.
“After all this effort, all these reforms, people still attack us,” he said.
Amnesty International this year acknowledged that Qatar has improved its record on labour rights, but said that a lack of enforcement of these reforms has “limited their impact.”
The ILO this week said unpaid wages were workers’ biggest complaint, and that Qatar’s main challenge is to apply its new laws. Marri said his ministry was “focused” on the task.
“If a salary payment is delayed for one month, we will pay from the fund and take action,” he said, adding that owners of blacklisted companies had been fined and jailed.
Marri said the World Cup has only “speeded up” the reforms. “We will reconfirm our commitments and continue our reforms because we want to continually improve our own country.”
The minister said he was discussing making the ILO’s office in Doha permanent, and that Qatar wants to host an annual dialogue on protecting migrant workers.
“We lead the region now for migrant reforms,” Al Marri said. “We have good relations with our neighbours, and we can exchange best practices.”
– © AFP 2022, with reporting by Gavin Cooney
The elephant in the room is Cantwell she destroyed it.
@Kevin Byrne: I like to say she castrated it
An article that needed writing. The Sunday Game has become a fast forward show now. Can’t believe what they have done to it
Why not show more of the highlights and less of the back patting analysis the newest panelists are just yes men and dribble on.missed more good scores from play in highlights of munster game and spend 10mins talking waffle
It’s become a bit like sky’s coverage of soccer. Bland and too cosy,afraid to criticise the product ie hurling or football game that they have just watched.
Stop ticking boxes and go back to the grass roots of the program too many women covering the men’s game there I’ve said it
@Gareth: should get a real man like you in Gareth, that’d sort it.
McBennett has ruined sport on RTE. Has got rid of any entertaining pundits. Now it’s just drab, boring stats from the likes of Cora Staunton, Eamonn Fitzmaurice (Fr. Stone) and co. Nobody cares if Monaghan have won 62.8% of their long kick outs. Jacqui Hurley is decent, Cantwell is useless. She should be in a class room talking down to children and not front and centre of all sport.
McBennett’s been a disaster whether intentionally or by dint of being a shill of an organisation that’s long since ceased to be relevant or functional. The intensely poor presentation of Jackie Hurley or the robotic Damian Lawlor sits side by side with amateur, innane punditry where once there was entertainment and insight. Maybe they can’t be blamed for the bags the GAA has made of the schedule but they could at least try to inspire particularly amid reams of brilliant hurling games. It’s terrible. It follows the patterns of RTÉ’s collapse in standards in sports presentation and coverage in recent years.
I note that the other comments here are focussed on the punditry. I find that the quality of the production, camera work, editing of footage of the actual games has deteriorated significantly in recent years. It’s often disjointed in terms of editing, behind the play in terms of camera work , the colour etc can be poor quality and they highlights editor doesn’t capture the highlights in my opinion. Then you have the punditry. They have gone down the PC road. This is both in terms of make up of panel and approach to analysis. I remember seeing a Graeme Souness interview where he said that working for RTE was a breath of fresh air compared to working for Sky/BT because you were free to say what you thought without issue after the production. That no longer seems to be the case.
Good article. It’s gone far too boring, really. It was genuine entertainment back in the day. The average viewer doesn’t care too much for kick out stats or possessions. Very, very sterile and I’ve stopped watching.
I wouldn’t blame Joanne Cantwell, however. She is a fine presenter, just has had a different remit due to McBennett.
@An tEoghanach: Cantwell is a disaster.
Highlights too short for me
Cantwell is an awful presenter… Too patronising for my liking…
@Ray Farrell: I’d be a fan of Ursula. She doesn’t pretend to be something she’s not.
I’d be confident in saying that past pundits and presenters had a genuine interest in the sport and growing its popularity but that the new crew have a large interest in their self promotion and career advancement or at least it comes across that way.
Yes the show has got worse but lets look at the product..the football games year on year now are almost unwatchable, maybe 2 or 3 good games in the whole championship. Remember growing up watching the drawn Dublin/Meath games..full of exciting attacking play. No way could sit down now and watch a game except maybe semis or final. And then the genius GAA bring in a format where 4 teams get eliminated after 24 games. And everyone knows who they will be. Hurling TBF is exciting and a different watch completely.
Too many people with agendas like Joe canning and ml.duignan .
@john mcgrath: what about shane dowling? He declared on national TV that shoulders to the head are just part of munster hurling. Wonder was it because it was 2 of his buddies who were giving the shoulders to heads
@john doe: He didn’t say that. He was commenting on Back room team members running from the bench to strike players on the field. As is the norm now you have taken his comments completely out of context to suit your agenda. What he actually said was that things can happen on the field in the heat and pace of championship hurling but what should never happen and can never be accepted is mentors and/or officials entering the field of play and assaulting players. That is what he said.
@Tim Dawson: anyone who promotes gambling is dead to me
@Barry Baz: I wasn’t aware, until now, that he did. I don’t judge a man for making a legal living. I don’t support gambling either and recognize how damaging it can be.
@Barry Baz: what are you on about Barry Baz? Genuine question.
@john doe: no he didn’t?
@Tim Dawson: I actually think it is you that is removing the context. The conversation was about Flanagan’s foul that was ignored (I say ignored because in his report he said he saw it, but decided not to punish it) by the ref and when asked about it Dowling passed it off as part of the game and, in an attempt to deflect from it, highlighted the Waterford mentor’s dig at Gearoid Hegarty.
@Dappy McMahon: oh he most definitely did
With everything PC now, hard to get a balance between a good argument and all smiles like in the US and lately the UK coverages. A bit boring to say the least.
If you close your eyes while listening to Paul Flynn, you can almost imagine that Dave Fanning is on the panel.
On a more serious note, why is the live games on Sunday afternoon the first game on The Sunday Game that night? I know the obvious answer jumps out ,that being they are perceived as being the biggest games of the day..Obviously they are because they have already been chosen as the live games.
To spend so much time undermining the ref from x players, who should know better I guess they have to earn the money, when they have different camera angles, slowed to step by step movements
And zooming into action
I find that type of discussion infuriating
A ref gets one fleeting moment to call each action
Stick to comments as the game was played
And with out agendas
We all know why it’s gone sh it.
But not aloud say it.
Ha I’m sure as fu#% not. Well on this platform anyways