The decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar didn’t bother me in particular, for me, World Cups are a chance to watch great footballers playing for teams I don’t have a vested interest in. That changed when reports of hundreds of deaths of foreign migrants, allowed in to build the infrastructure required to host the tournament.
The Indian embassy in Qatar report that the death rate of their nationals involved in construction projects in Qatar is reaching epidemic levels. 233 died in 2010, 239 in 2011, 237 in 2013 and 241 in 2013. 24 died in January this year, a total of 998 since the beginning of 2010. This is a blight on humanity.
The Guardian revealed that 197 Nepalese died in 2012 and 185 died in 2013. Many of the deaths are no characterised as classic construction accidents, the heat and environmental conditions, together with the lack of facilities for immigrants, mean many die of ‘natural’ causes, including heart failure, there are other nationals there too, also dying in alarming numbers.
Labour MP, Jim Murphy, last month said, “Some of the practices we know are taking place in Qatar amount to forced labour, and there are widespread concerns that the death toll could reach well into the thousands if nothing is done.” The International Trade Union Confederation estimate (without needing to extrapolate greatly) up to 4,000 workers could die before the country is ready to host the tournament.
The prospect of a sea of blood on the pitch has not been enough to convince Fifa to call a halt to the slaughter, or at least use the threat of withdrawal to ensure migrants experience safe and humane living and working conditions.
As the tournament draws nearer, pressure groups will become better organised, but by that time, many more will have died. As fans, or, in this instance, to adopt our more effective role as consumers of TV and companies who sponsor the tournament, we have a lot of work to do, and we need to start now.
Before Fifa act they will need a lot of encouragement from sponsors, unhappy at the prospect of their brands being associated with a death trade, and they will need approval from the lawyers. Qatar ‘invested’ hugely in football as they were busy vacuuming up votes, including buying real estate on the front of Barcelona’s shirts, once regarded as an ethically responsible club. The platform association with UNICEF looks like blatant opportunism.
Today’s Telegraph offers Fifa a chance to call a halt to the project. They allege former Fifa vice president, Jack Warner and his family, were paid $2m just weeks after Qatar were awarded the tournament. The Qatar authorities deny wrongdoing.
This is perhaps the most important article concerning the football industry in decades as it opens a door to stop the despair of thousands of workers living in abject poverty and mortal danger. According to the Telegraph, law enforcement agencies are already active on this issue. They need to quickly establish if the Qatar bid was assisted by criminal activity before the tournament can be withdrawn. The danger is that irrespective of what law enforcement agencies uncover, or who ultimately goes to jail, there is so much illicit cash floating around Fifa that those in positions of power will protect their paymasters.
Before this happens, you, me, our clubs, and whoever cares from the various football associations, must organise and turn up the pressure on the criminals with their snouts in the Fifa trough. If we pass up on this opportunity, we could wait decades for the next chance to rid the top of our game of criminals.
Seville – The Celtic Movement is available now:
“Of course we’d loved Blackburn, Stuttgart, Liverpool etc, but with twenty minutes to go in Oporto, I sat with my stomach recreating a range of football related sinking feelings from the past. You know, being told I was ‘rubbish’ by the high school team prima donna as another of his cannonball passes rocketed out for a shy under my foot, or the time I ran home from primary school to watch Celtic lose to…. someone…on a black and white television during the seventies. I’ve never wanted to find out who we lost to or what year it was. The memory is more intriguing left blurry like footage of the moon landings.”
Get yours here:
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Ok you guys are no fun
See you next week
Well I see tonydonnely is still talking mince!
tonydonnelly67 15:20 on 18 March, 2014
“Wanna sign up?”
Surely a joke?
Jimmci,
Were they off the pitch or in the crowd?
jimmci @ 17:18 on 18 March, 2014
Judged watched the st Mirren Dundee Utd game highlights. Cifti scores late winner and entire team are off the pitch celebrating.
Good old Craig Thompson issued no cards.
Jimmci, like you I was watching for that and like you didn’t see it and like you concluded the same thing, but ……..Cifti actually did get booked (off camera) and that takes him over the points threshold so he misses the next league game. Wee Jackie was talking about it today and remarked that he’d need to get his players to stop doing the crowd/celebration thing. Stupid, daft rule that’s ALWAYS applied to us right enough.
Jinkyredstar
Melrise? It’s the past tense…..Melrose
can I have rasberry on that champions league ice cream
how very subtle of John to keep his allegiances under his hat
not like that catriona shearer on the beeb, she’s partial to an odd party tune being a season(maybe not next season) ticket at the skulldrome !
Geordie Munro 17:05 – Ye’ve fun me oot !! Still makes me chucklke to this day, that one.
cadizzy 17:20 – Yesh (as my growth hormone enhanced, Rupert Bear trousered Netherlandish friends would say)…………Holland ish a region op day Nederlands.
The Unhealthy Meat Market
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/opinion/kristof-the-unhealthy-meat-market.html?_r=2
Av wee bit of squabbling over on the RIFC Shares Discussion Board this afternoo, with some not liking this guy telling some truths.
” King has been on record as saying he would help raise funds on three occasions. At no time did he ever say he would invest. He stated that he would not line the pockets of the current board. He invested £20M in the SDM Rangers. So Keith Jackson and some fans have assumed that he will do so again. He lost the £20M. He did not become rich by investing in failing enterprises. This is not business for King. His business brain says do not touch the current board with the proverbial barge pole. His heart says that he should be the cheerleader for new investment. The King Investment is built on sand.”
emeraldbee\o/ proud to be an internet bampot
Thanks for clarifying. Looked at the bbc website which indicated no booking…..they show Robertson as the only player to be booked for united.
TD67
Petition signed, but, do you think the SFA consider Ibrox as a neutral venue, because Sevco dont actually own it?
Just a thought!
HH
Good evening friends. 3 wee techie questions if I may.
1. Jobo’s D’oh question. I’ve been receiving warnings that my storage on my laptop is near capacity. Went on to ‘Computer’ and see thatfor OS(C:) it says I have 17GB ( the Green Brigade get everywhere!) free out of 119GB. But I also see DATA(D:) which is almost empty (available – 153GB). I’m thinking of cutting some folders from the C-drive to the D-drive but should there be any problems accessing these afterwards?
2. Son bought a new laptop today but didn’t come with any of the Microsoft suite (Excel, Word or Outlook). Any suggested alternatives as the Microsoft add on pack was something like £120!
3. Mrs Baldie in the market for a new Netbook. Doesn’t fancy a touch screen tablet. Something under £300 – any recommendations or recent purchases?
As always I know the CQN community won’t let me down
whoneedsAmazonorWhichCSC
Jobo Baldie
You can download Libre Office Free does the job for me.
Awerabest PJ
Jobo!
In my mind’s eye you rule over a huge meteorological substation that bristles with no end of gadgets & technology in a benign form of Dr Evil kind of a fashion!!!
Don’tShatterMyIllusionsCSC
HH jamesgang
No sympathy for Utd. They didn’t complain at the time. Nor did anybody else. Why should it be moved?
The ticket allocation is a disgrace though.
Rioskorrie
“……. (as my growth hormone enhanced, Rupert Bear trousered Netherlandish friends would say)…………Holland ish a region op day Nederlands.
Absolutely right…..they are all incredibly tall. There is no Dutch equivalent of “wee man”
Anybody want a wee prediction of how the King charade will turn out should have a wee look at James Forrests on fields of green take on it.
Till later all meeting time
Begoodcsc
John O’Neil
Shug keevins said the exact thing as you today and it pained me to agree with him.
I found it much easier to agree when you said it. Lol
Papa John –
any compatability issues? My Bhoy doesn’t create that many documents. But he needs to be able to open email attachments which are invariably Word or Excel. Does Libre do that OK?
jamesgang – all of my gadgets are in fine working order at the mo but the rest of the house is falling apart ;-)
Arty
16:32 on
18 March, 2014
Your article reminds me of these lines from the Peter, Paul and Mary song,
“And how many deaths does it take till he knows, that too many people have died?”
*hate tae be pedantic but Mr. Zimmerman wrote that.
Freewheelin CSC
itscalledthemalvinas
17:32 on 18 March, 2014
can I have rasberry on that champions league ice cream
how very subtle of John to keep his allegiances under his hat
not like that catriona shearer on the beeb, she’s partial to an odd party tune being a season(maybe not next season) ticket at the skulldrome !
Once a hun
John O’Neil
https://twitter.com/ScottishFA
bit.ly/1hwQU4P
I was suprised when I read this.
Dohhhhh this :))
http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_fa_news.cfm?page=2986&newsID=13171&newsCategoryID=1
Jobo,
1, no.
2, offerbank has it for half that price. Or you could obtain a hooky version. Ahem.
3, pass.
Geordie Munro –
1. Good
2. I’ll check, thanks.
3. It was all going so well too ;-)
jinkyredstar cuts it back for Neil Lennon
17:25 on
18 March, 2014
Cadizzy
The best thing about the 78 World Cup was the night we qualified in 77 against the Czechs- the Melrise Bar in Greenock was never the same again!
=================
The Melrose, now there was a hard bar, always dodgy getting back to the Port after gubbing them at Pool.
HH
Jobo Baldie
17:44 on
18 March, 2014
Good evening friends. 3 wee techie questions if I may.
1. Jobo’s D’oh question. I’ve been receiving warnings that my storage on my laptop is near capacity. Went on to ‘Computer’ and see thatfor OS(C:) it says I have 17GB ( the Green Brigade get everywhere!) free out of 119GB. But I also see DATA(D:) which is almost empty (available – 153GB). I’m thinking of cutting some folders from the C-drive to the D-drive but should there be any problems accessing these afterwards?
2. Son bought a new laptop today but didn’t come with any of the Microsoft suite (Excel, Word or Outlook). Any suggested alternatives as the Microsoft add on pack was something like £120!
3. Mrs Baldie in the market for a new Netbook. Doesn’t fancy a touch screen tablet. Something under £300 – any recommendations or recent purchases?
As always I know the CQN community won’t let me down
whoneedsAmazonorWhichCSC
————————————————————
1. You can move your data (music, photos, videos, documents etc) to the D: partition. You may need to let the Applications know where you’ve put the data. For example, iTunes will expect your iTunes Library to be in C: but you’ve moved it so you need to go into Properties in iTunes to change the Library location. Same for other applications.
2. OpenOffice is completely free and works just like MS Office. You can download the relevant version here :
http://www.openoffice.org/download/
3. Laptop reccos here :
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/laptop/3214618/whats-best-laptop-you-can-buy-in-2013-2014/
Jobo,
Brilliant :)
can I have raspberry on that champions league ice cream
Yup, true to form, I can read that guy like a book, please feel free to splash him next time you see him !
seanbattythetokentimcsc
geordie munro and John O’Neil
According to Jim Spence, Dundee Utd made a complaint to the SFA regarding the semi final venue the day after it was announced.
Having just read the statement on the SFA and Dundee utd a couple of things strike me.
Firstly I have never seen such a vociferous response from the SFA. That’s interesting when combined with my other points.
Secondly if true it’s clear that the Dundee utd rep badly miscalculated. I say if it’s true because I simply don’t trust the SFA.
Even more interestingly however the SFA quote previous attendance as a stArting points well that’s a firsts how many times have smaller clubs been given a massive ticket allocation regardless of previous attendance. Since when have previous attendances been a factor. It’s quite incredible that this is now used as an excuse.
So back to my point about a complete breakdown in trust with the SFA. They have never used previous attendance as a factor but do so now. They attack Dundee utd having never done so in the past, think about that. Green used to openly attack them and they said nothing.
And what happened to all the press objections about non neutral stadiums. It’s all gone quiet.
Scotland. Corrupt and institutionally sectarian.mceltic? Silent.
John O’Neil, the sfa have issued a statement saying that for utd’s last two sc semis they sold less than 17k tickets in total. They also say there is provision for the allocation to be increased should utd manage to sell their allocation.
It seems they simply have a pish support.
Comfortable collective. If that’s true then why haven’t the SFA mentioned that in their statement?
This stinks.
Geordie 17.53.
Okily dokely. Not sure if that is an insult or not! I seldom agree with Spew Heevins.
Ceilnor see my posts first time previous attendance has EVER been Used. The SFA are liars.
Mackay is sporting a blue and white tie this evening.
Palacio67
Jinkyredstar and I were in the Melrose one night when we met a guy we had been in primary school with. He was with 3 other guys. He was getting married and asked us if we wanted to go to his stag….”aye sure”, we said. “When is it?”. “Tonight, in about 5 minutes, he said “Over there” and pointed to a table about 5 yards away. The six of us (nobody else turned up) had a few drinks, didn’t strip anybody or tie them to a lampost and then went home. Not exaclty a weekend in Amsterdam but at least it was upstairs in the lounge.
Do you rembember the guy who owned the Bay Hotel/Janeys bought it and tried to turn it upmarket and trendy (late 70’s early 80’s)?