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FIFA has ignored its report on compensation for the Qatar World Cup compensations.
Keir Radnedge.com reports that a FIFA subcommittee report on Qatar’s 2022 World Cup legacy said soccer’s world governing body is responsible for compensating migrant workers. However, the body has not acted on a recommendation to do that using its legacy fund.
The report prepared by the FIFA Sub-Committee on Human Rights & Social Responsibility examined a request made by the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) at the FIFA Congress, which asked what steps FIFA might take to compensate the workers.
FIFA launched a $50 million legacy fund this week for social programs but was criticized by Amnesty International for not doing anything for families of migrant workers who died or were exploited when building Qatar’s stadiums for the World Cup.
However, the Middle Eastern country has denied that workers were exploited.
The report said, “There are workers who have contributed to the resounding success of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 who have not yet benefited from any, or any adequate, remediation.
“Whilst the main responsibility to rectify such shortcomings lies with the direct employees of these workers as well as with the Government of Qatar … FIFA too has a responsibility to take additional measures to The report said many “human rights impacts” occurred in Qatar from 2010-2022 for workers, including deaths, injuries, wages not being paid for months and debt faced by workers and their families reimbursing fees they paid to obtain jobs.
NFF president Lise Klaveness said, “The report provides clear guidelines to FIFA on what constitutes effective and clear restitution to ensure migrant workers get the compensation they are entitled to.
“FIFA must now implement the recommendations in the report and ensure that migrant workers who contributed to the World Cup are fairly compensated.”
A FIFA spokesman said, “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.”
He added that the FIFA Council “unanimously endorsed” the creation of the legacy fund, while a Workers’ Support and Insurance Fund was established in Qatar in 2018.
At the World Cup in Doha, FIFA president Gianni Infantino said the Workers Support and Insurance Fund had compensated more than $350 million to workers in cases related to wage non-payment.
Amnesty and other rights groups had led calls for FIFA to compensate migrant workers for human rights abuses by setting aside $440 million, matching the World Cup prize money.
