Nigels Tackle wrote:Im_Spartacus wrote:Wonderwall wrote:its obvious the Qatar bid was corrupt, no one in their right mind would have voted for it unless they were coerced into doing so with some sort of arm twist. Its just ridiculous to even entertain the notion of holding it in the middle of a season. Its only a matter of time before a revote is held and greenland wins it.
I really wont want another Blatter (clean or not), I would like a democratic committee who vote on the way forward. We dont need a single megalomaniac at the helm, we need a sensible group.
In fairness to the Qatari bid, as I've written before, the technology for the summer world cup is available and has recently been successfully tested 6 years ahead of when it was due to be delivered. The infrastructure for the world cup includes and underground metro system and the entire city centre criss crossed with airconditioned, underground travelators.
A summer world cup would have been entirely possible, but FIFA/Blatter shit it after they awarded it once they found out 3 years later that their insurers weren't going to cover the event, and that's when the pack of cards started to fall in as the blatantly bent award of the TV rights to Fox and potential row with the European leagues about rescheduling the season then became the main battleground.
Anyway, I'll always stick up for the Qataris as whilst they have bought it, they dare to dream, and they want to host the best world cup ever - I believe they probably still will, particularly from the fans' perspective given that all stadia except one is in a 30km radius, the fan parks when our own teams aren't playing will be huge and really good fun, with the option of flights to Dubai and other cities in the region for less than $100 return.
I'm just a bit gutted that even though I hoped to be sticking around for it, I'm moving to Dubai next week, but will still be able to drive over or get the train when the tournament comes round
are you purposefully ignoring the 'slave' labour they're using to build this infastructure?
Only in so much as you assume that what you see written in the media is without agenda, the issue is far less simplistic.
I recently worked with one of the major British main contractors and part of my contract was to nail down some of the sub-contractors' practices, and believe me, it's fucking hard as they are right slippery cunts, so what I say below is from personal experience.
Reputable, international construction firms are the main contractors for ALL of Qatar's infrastructure projects. In order to obtain the volume of manpower that is required to complete the jobs, the construction firms have to subcontract, generally to indian firms who hire Indian or Nepali workers. There are very clear charters drawn up by Qatar Foundation relating to the treatment of workers which are imposed on the sub-contractors and Qatar has a very very clear labor law and punishments for non-adherence.
The issues which are occurring, are mistreatment of employees by sub-contractors. Typically, the majority of the worst cases of mistreatment are indian on indian, the indian subbies are utter cunts with their workforces, totally immoral and don't give a flying fuck about welfare of workers. The main contractors know this, and they are playing a game of 'whack-a-mole' doing camp inspections where subcontractors give false addresses for camps or falsify the number of people living in good camps so hiding the appalling camps. The main contractors are frequently having to pay the wages of the staff on the contract, because the sub-contractors have been known not to pay their staff for several months, whilst the staff are too scared to complain to the main contractor. You sack a subcontractor for their conduct they just move to another main contractor, so the main contractors have elected to keep them on, but impose massive penalties when they catch them being cunts with the workforce. Then the staff don't get paid, it's a vicious circle, and only time and perseverence will fix it.
The Qataris for their part are telling the main contractors to get the fucking job done within the law and do the job that they are being paid (very well) to do, but it all breaks down because of the vast numbers of labourers involved.The sub-contractors are a fucking disgrace, particularly in the mistreatment of their own countrymen, but there are so many of them (Carillion for example have some 40 or 50 labor providers) that it's impossible to manage them all because of all the stunts and dodges they are pulling to avoid their obligations. If there were only a couple of labor providers, it would be a damned site easier to manage, but with over 1.2m people engaged in infrastructure construction in Qatar, you can see the scale of the problem of how to find labor on that scale - but you must remember that not all of that labor is world cup related, Qatar has a building boom as a result of investment of gas revenues so much of the construction would have being going on whether the world cup was happening or not.
The issue of 'modern slavery' where passports are taken and not returned is shouted about all over the press, but it's a red herring. In most GCC countries, including Qatar, an exit visa is required, so whether the person has their passport in their possession or not is irrelevant, as without an exit visa nobody is going anywhere. Again, the issues even for people who have valid leave booked, is that the sub-contractors are such a disgrace, that they might or might not get round to issuing the exit visa on the govt system, and the first the staff member will know about it is when they are turned away at the airport. Having said that, this is a frequent occurrence for many people in Qatar, it's even happened to me once because staff out here are generally fucking wank.
The numbers you see about 'deaths caused on world cup construction sites' - again, another red herring. Firstly, most of the stadia aren't even being built yet, secondly, the number of road deaths involving Indian workers was as high as 150 in the first 3 months alone, but these are lumped in and the number you see reported as 'world cup deaths' is nothing of the sort, they are counting all deaths from whatever cause - last year there were over 2500 road deaths in Qatar last year, the vast majority involving expat workers, because thats who makes up the majority of the 2.5m population (Qataris make up 10% of that).
A final point to make on the deaths, many are due to sheer fucking stupidity. I know a good number of senior managers within a variety of construction firms, and they all say that their eyes water daily with some of the sights they see on the construction sites out of pure stupidity of construction workers. Where caught by the main contractor, the miscreant is sent packing immediately, but these people genuinely are fucking thick, they really do things that defy belief on a site.
The situation is far from ideal, and despite what I say above, it's certainly not what you would expect to see in England. However, most of the workers in Qatar spent their entire life in their home countries shitting in the open they are so poor, so I don't accept that being paid $400 a month with free board and meals is unfair. That money supports not just their family, but their extended family - and the biggest issues for me are when the cunts in charge of the subcontractors have memory lapses when it comes to pay day, as that doesn't just fuck the worker up, but it fucks a whole family up.
This however, is the middle east, and you simply can't judge what goes on here by western standards. There's a lot of things that aren't right about the treatment of workers, but most of the mistreatment and exploitation goes on as a hidden sub-culture perpetrated by their countrymen, not by the Qataris, or the European and US contractors.
