FIFA World Cup: All Sponsors Should Back Remedies for Workers
FIFA’s corporate partners and sponsors of the 2022 World Cup should all press the global football association and the Qatari government to provide compensation and other remedies to migrant workers and their families who suffered death or injury, wage theft or debt from illegal recruitment fees while preparing the tournament, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and FairSquare said today.
The call comes as a new global opinion poll commissioned by Amnesty International shows that two-thirds (66 percent) of those surveyed, and 72 percent of those likely to watch at least one World Cup match, said that FIFA’s corporate partners and sponsors should publicly call on FIFA to compensate migrant workers who suffered while preparing the World Cup in Qatar. The poll was carried out by YouGov and surveyed 17,477 adults in 15 countries.
In July, the three human rights organizations wrote to FIFA’s 14 corporate partners and World Cup sponsors urging them to call on the football body to remedy abuses of migrant workers linked to preparations for the World Cup. Since then, four of them, AB InBev/Budweiser, Adidas, Coca-Cola, and McDonald’s, have stated their support for such financial compensation. Ten other sponsors have offered no public support and have not responded to written requests to discuss tournament-related abuses. These companies are Visa, Hyundai-Kia, Wanda Group, Qatar Energy, Qatar Airways, Vivo, Hisense, Mengniu, Crypto, and Byju’s.