According to one of the football organization’s senior executives, FIFA wants to assist workers in Qatar who were hurt while working on World Cup construction projects to receive compensation.
FIFA Has Opened A Fund To Reimburse Migrant Workers In Qatar
Since Amnesty International stated that FIFA should give $440 million toward reparations, matching the entire prize money FIFA will award to the 32 national teams competing in Qatar next month, football federations in Europe have backed calls for the fund.
Since winning the right to host the World Cup 12 years ago, Qatar has been under increasing scrutiny for the physical and contractual conditions it provided to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who were required in the small emirate.
Alasdair Bell, the FIFA deputy secretary general, said during a Council of Europe discussion on labour rights in Qatar that compensation is “absolutely something that we’re interested in moving forward with.”
At the 46-nation group’s gathering in Strasbourg, France, Bell urged legislators to “attempt to ensure that everyone who experienced damage as a consequence of participating in the World Cup, that it is properly redressed.”
The official who openly lambasted Qatar during the gathering of world football officials in Doha this year was pleading with FIFA on Thursday to use its influence with the World Cup host nation.
According to Lise Klaveness, head of the Norwegian Football Federation, ensuring compensation is paid should be a top priority for FIFA in order to ensure a positive legacy in Qatar following the World Cup.
A reparations fund would require specific guidelines and control, and FIFA’s Bell agreed with Klaveness that it “is not the simplest thing to put in place.”
However, he said, “This is definitely something that we’re interested in moving forward with.
On Thursday, it was unclear if FIFA, Qatari officials, or the construction companies who employed the workers—many of whom were from south Asia and the Philippines—were responsible for paying the compensation.
According to official figures cited by Human Rights Watch in August, Qatar established a workers’ assistance fund that, since 2020, has compensated more than 36,000 workers from 17 different countries with $164 million.
In Strasbourg, the Qatari government and the World Cup organisers received plaudits for enacting changes to the labour code that included a minimum salary.