FIFA ‘has a responsibility’ to compensate Qatar World Cup workers, report finds

A report commissioned by FIFA has concluded football’s governing body “has a responsibility” to compensate workers who suffered during the hosting of the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

The long-awaited report from FIFA’s sub-committee on human rights and social responsibility — finally published on Friday at midnight Central European Time — says the governing body “took a number of steps to seek to meet its responsibility to respect human rights” as part of the delivery of the tournament two years ago.

However, FIFA failed to meet one of the report’s primary recommendations of using the Qatar Legacy Fund to remedy workers impacted by human rights abuses, instead announcing they would donate the money to several other programmes which will not directly compensate workers in Qatar.

FIFA insisted the study was not “a legal assessment of the obligation to remedy”.

The independent study, commissioned by the sub-committee and developed by the business and human rights advisory firm ‘Human Level’, notes that “a number of severe human rights impacts did ultimately occur in Qatar from 2010 through 2022” for a number of workers connected to the tournament.

This included “deaths, injuries and illnesses; wages not being paid for months on end; and significant debt faced by workers and their families reimbursing the fees they paid to obtain jobs in Qatar.”

While acknowledging that “the main responsibility to rectify such shortcomings lies with the direct employers of these workers as well as with the Qatari government” the sub-committee “endorses the view expressed in the Human Level Study that FIFA too has a responsibility to take additional measures to contribute to the provision of remedy to these workers.”

World Cup organizers have put the number of deaths directly linked to the delivery of the tournament at 40. Human rights groups have long estimated that thousands of workers died.

A FIFA spokesperson said: “All reports and recommendations were considered during a comprehensive review by the FIFA administration and relevant bodies. While all recommendations could not be met, practical and impactful elements were retained.

“It should be noted that the study did not specifically constitute a legal assessment of the obligation to remedy.”

The report recommends that FIFA should use its Qatar Legacy Fund to remedy workers impacted or, for those who died, their family members.

The sub-committee advises them to “act upon the intention, as indicated by FIFA in a press release of 19 November 2022, to dedicate the FIFA World Cup 2022 Legacy Fund in full or in part to further strengthen the competition’s legacy for migrant workers.”

However, two days before the report’s publication FIFA announced the $50million fund would instead be used on a series of social programmes globally in collaboration with Qatar and three organisations, the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, instead.

A FIFA spokesperson said: “The creation of the FIFA World Cup 2022 Legacy Fund was unanimously endorsed by the FIFA Council following a proposal made by the FIFA governance, audit and compliance committee.

“A Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund was established in Qatar in 2018 and FIFA believes the new Legacy Fund, endorsed by recognised international agencies, is a pragmatic and transparent initiative that will encompass social programmes to help people most in need across the world.”

Following the award of the World Cup to Qatar, FIFA has added human rights as a consideration as part of its bidding process for tournaments.

On Friday FIFA’s evaluation report for Saudi Arabia’s 2034 World Cup bid declared the risk assessment for human rights to be “medium”.

A vote on the hosts for the tournament — where the Saudi bid has no rival — will take place at the FIFA Congress on December 11.

(Anne-Christine Poujoulat/AFP via Getty Images)