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FIFA Congress: English and Welsh FAs should push FIFA on Qatar workers' compensation fund
The English and Welsh players and FAs made supportive comments about human rights in Qatar, with the captains of both teams intending to wear a European teams’ “OneLove” inclusivity armband at the competition before a last-minute ban imposed by FIFA.
Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s Economic Affairs Director, said:
The English and Welsh FAs both signalled their support for human rights in Qatar ahead of the World Cup and now they should push FIFA over belatedly funding a comprehensive worker remediation scheme. “Behind the hype over the ‘best ever’ tournament there’s the brutal reality that Qatar2022 was built on the suffering of thousands of migrant workers and took place in a country where LGBTQ+ people are persecuted, and freedom of speech and women’s rights are unacceptably curtailed. “In Kigali, we’d like to see the English or Welsh FAs strongly pushing back on Gianni Infantino’s much-criticised injunction to ‘focus on the football’ and instead support efforts to reposition FIFA as a footballing body able and willing to fulfil its human rights obligations.