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- Time on your hands… - 19th December 2024
Even before England’s defeat by France at the men’s Qatar World Cup, Welsh football fans condemned the fanfare around their national team qualifying for a tournament in a country where it is illegal to be gay, it’s feared that thousands of migrant workers may have died in building the infrastructure for it, and they were disturbed by the accusations of bribery to secure the competition in the first place.
One, Dafydd Jones, of Neath told The Eye: “I have always backed the Wales team, but all this hoopla about us qualifying for Qatar left me completely cold. Especially as we went out in the first round.
“After all – people can’t be gay there, and I have read about the money that changed hands to get the World Cup. It’s in the wrong place anyway, and Qatar should never have got it. The heat means they have had to move all the schedules back home!”.
Another declared: “Any Welsh team gets my support. But why is it so great to be in Qatar, with their human rights record? I know a lot of my mates feel the same way, but won’t say it out loud. I can’t put my name to this, because I will never have another friend in the supporters’ club.”.
The outraged comments highlight deep unease concerning the desert state where the World Cup is being held, as well as alarming revelations about how the contest was won.
The Sunday Times, disclosed that the country had secretly offered £400 million to the football governing body FIFA, just 21 days before being awarded the event, and once the announcement was made, more alarm bells started to ring.
The country is slightly smaller than Connecticut and has scant soccer pedigree, but in December 2010 the tournament was given to it even so, during a bidding process that, according to American authorities, was riddled with corruption.
Terrible remarks from Khalid Salman, a retired football star from Qatar, and ambassador for the football World Cup, have underscored the awful facts that gay people there may endure a punishment of up to three years in prison, as well as knowing they could even face the death penalty under sharia law if they are Muslim.
He used an Arabic term for being homosexual meaning that it was a “damage in the mind”, speaking on the German public broadcaster ZDF. Mr Salman also appallingly said that gay people were bringing in to Qatar something that was “not good”, and he was worried children in his country might see gay men and women. He was then swiftly cut off by a media adviser.
This medieval approach to being gay in Qatar caused a huge storm, with remarks from politicians adding to it.
The Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly said even before them, that fans should be: “Respectful of the host nation” (which has a TINY population of just 2.9 million people, but with an estimated 1.7 million migrant workers). However Lucy Powell the Shadow Culture Secretary declared: “This is shockingly tone deaf from James Cleverly”.
Under the headline: Why Qatar makes this football fan so uneasy”, The Times columnist David Aaronovitch wrote: “…it is effectively a monarchical dictatorship”, as well as: “…I wouldn’t dream of going (to Qatar). Even watching from afar feels horribly like collusion. It’s all a bit sad”.
Others though, HAVE gone to Qatar, but for reasons other than those held by some Welsh football fans – to protest about its severe laws. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) campaigner Peter Tatchell demonstrated against them in its capital Doha, where he held up a placard which said: “Qatar arrests, jails and subjects LGBTs to ‘conversion’”.
This shocking situation may be connected to it emerging that Prince William was not to travel to the country (unlike some supporters), even though he is President of the Football Association (FA).
Earlier this year, under the headline ‘DOCTOR BECOMES ‘FIRST’ QATARI TO PUBLICLY COME OUT AS GAY’ The Independent reported that Nas Mohammed said: “I walked into a gay club and I knew I was 100 per cent gay. I went home and cried – I thought my life is in crisis. I thought I was going to go to hell, my life is damned”.
One leading Welsh football presenter, told our Editor, Phil Parry: “A producer I work with is gay and he can’t go!”.
Even the former president of FIFA, (Sepp Blatter), appears now to have reversed his position, and says the decision to award the World Cup to Qatar was a “mistake”. We are told this is to do with the size of the country, and not connected to human rights abuses, but his comments will only add to the worrying headlines about Qatar.
Mr Blatter’s change of heart came as 10 European football associations (including those of England and Wales) announced: “human rights are universal and apply everywhere”.
Peaceful protests were planned by some players, while England’s defeated Harry Kane and nine other captains of European teams (among them the Wales captain Gareth Bale) were to wear ‘One Love’ armbands in order to promote diversity and inclusion. But it was decided NOT to wear them following a threat from FIFA that players could face an instant yellow card for doing so. Afterwards, a joint statement from the Football Associations of England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands and Switzerland declared. “We are very frustrated by the FIFA decision which we believe is unprecedented – we wrote to FIFA in September informing them of our wish to wear the One Love armband to actively support inclusion in football, and had no response”. They added: “FIFA has been very clear that it will impose sporting sanctions if our captains wear the armbands on the field of play“
Denmark were donning ‘toned-down’ shirts in protest, with kit provider Hummel saying it did “not wish to be visible”, while Australia’s squad released a video urging Qatar to abolish its laws banning same-sex relationships.
Two excellent recent books have laid bare in horrifying detail the darker side of life inside Qatar. It has used the World Cup as a form of ‘soft power’, to boost the profile of the state, however there are serious doubts about the way this has been done.
They are: ‘Hidden Stories From One of the Richest Nations on Earth’ by John McManus, as well as ‘Qatar and the 2022 FIFA World Cup : ‘Politics, Controversy, Change’ by Paul Michael Brannagan and Danyel Reiche. The London Review of Books (LRB), which featured them, have underlined the nature of laws in the state: “Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, and though the organisers of the World Cup have insisted that everyone is welcome it remains to be seen how public demonstrations of same-sex affection will be handled; earlier this year one of the men in charge of security at the tournament Major General Abdulaziz Abdullah al-Ansari, warned that rainbow flags may be taken from fans for their own protection”.
Despite everything, football fans were urged to celebrate Wales’ qualification (although some may now be turning against it), and a group of Welsh supporters even recorded a charity song to mark the occasion.
The Cardiff-based newspaper South Wales Echo (SWE), and website version WalesOnline (WO) were particular cheerleaders, and they ‘reported’: “Those behind the song We’ve Got The Red Wall hope it will become a hit on the terraces and make it to number one before the tournament kicks off in Qatar in November”. One of those who made it, the senior Welsh journalist, Tim Hartley, flew out there to follow the Welsh team.
In one Facebook (FB) post a day before the tournament kicked off, and including a link to a UK newspaper piece with Daffydd Iwan’s ‘Yma o Hid’, he said: “People are finally ‘getting’ why we bang on about football, Wales, identity and the language. Diolch am hyn Donald. He posted, too, pictures on his FB page from inside the stadium before or during the Wales game against USA.
Mr Hartley changed his FB profile several times, as well, as he celebrated watching matches in Qatar.
In another FB post, though, he appeared to have become disillusioned with the organisation of the World Cup, and said: “Great atmos in the ground but getting back was a real drag. Hotels, prices, beer and bucket hats. I’m talking all things Wales Away on Radio 4s Today programme this morning at 0720”.
These disturbing events are set against the gay academic and former Welsh football international, Laura Mcallister, being told to remove her rainbow bucket hat by a stadium steward in Qatar.
But the conditions for migrant workers in building the stadiums for the kick-off have been no less alarming, and they place another question mark over Mr Hartley’s decision (and that of others) to fly out to Qatar. The dreadful heat and horrendous environment have led, it’s claimed, to THOUSANDS of deaths. The Qatari authorities vigorously dispute the high number, and say only fifty have died. But the respected Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) (Human Rights Watch [HRW]), say it is true.
What is certainly the case, though, is that Qatar detained and then deported dozens of migrant workers who were protesting about the circumstances of their work. HRW declared: “These are the people who have literally built the World Cup from the ground up, from the desert up. They are the ones who must receive financial compensation before the first ball is kicked”.
Like those migrant workers, women are also treated like second class citizens in Qatar. Most must be veiled, and they need the permission of a male ‘guardian’, usually a father or brother, to marry, get a government job, or to apply for a university scholarship.
The jubilations over qualifying were not confined to English-language media, either. The Welsh-language magazine Golwg produced a wall chart, showing the teams in each group, and the progress that must be made to reach the World Cup final.
The unhappy Wales football fans, though, appear to believe that human rights come first, and Welsh pride at reaching a major tournament, comes second.
It seems their unhappiness has been emphasised now, by England’s defeat at the hands of France in a country where it is illegal to be gay, huge numbers of migrant workers have died to build the World Cup infrastructure, and amid accusations of bribery in securing the tournament.
Stories like these by our award-winning Editor Phil Parry, who has spent 39 years in journalism, 23 of them at BBC Cymru Wales (BBC CW), and was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
