By Rohith Nair
(Reuters) – A FIFA sub-committee report on Qatar’s 2022 World Cup legacy said soccer’s world governing body has a responsibility to compensate migrant workers but the organisation has not acted on a recommendation to do that by using its legacy fund.
The report prepared by the FIFA Sub-Committee on Human Rights & Social Responsibility looked into a request made at the FIFA Congress by the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF), who asked what steps FIFA might take to compensate workers.
FIFA launched a $50 million legacy fund this week for social programmes but was criticised 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.
The Middle Eastern country has denied that workers were exploited.
“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,” said the report, which was published 11 months after it was submitted.
“Whilst the main responsibility to rectify such shortcomings lies with the direct employers of these workers as well as with the Government of Qatar… FIFA too has a responsibility to take additional measures to contribute to the provision of remedy to these workers.”
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.
“The due diligence measures put in place by FIFA and its partners did not prevent these severe impacts from occurring,” it added.
FAIR COMPENSATION
“The report provides clear guidelines to FIFA on what constitutes effective and fair restitution to ensure migrant workers get the compensation they are entitled to,” NFF president Lise Klaveness said.
“FIFA must now implement the recommendations in the report and ensure that migrant workers who contributed to the World Cup are fairly compensated.”
FIFA said all reports and recommendations were considered during a comprehensive review.
“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,” a FIFA spokesperson told Reuters.
The spokesperson added that the creation of the legacy fund was “unanimously endorsed” by the FIFA Council 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 provided compensation of more than $350 million to workers in cases mainly related to non-payment of wages.
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.
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Ken Ferris)
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