FIFA's response to Equidem report "If we complain, we are fired"
First, most of the questions in your letter relate to the overall systems implemented over the past years by the SC’s Workers’ Welfare Department in relation to FIFA World Cup™ construction sites. As you know, the SC has been remarkably transparent on their mechanisms and related outcomes...
In addition, the SC has, over the years, systematically invited experts for independent external scrutiny and advice to evaluate and further strengthen their systems...Second, in your letter, you share labour rights concerns from interviews conducted with individual workers who were employed on FIFA World Cup construction sites. We would like to stress that none of the practices reflected therein, if substantiated, are acceptable to FIFA. We would also like to note that it is precisely these types of company malpractice that the workers’ welfare programme for FIFA World Cup workers set out to prevent and, where identified, address. As has been found and recognised repeatedly by various independent experts assessing the programme over the years, tens of thousands of workers have in fact benefited from heightened standards through these efforts...
Based on FIFA’s own close collaboration with the SC on this topic over the last ten years, the findings of BWI and Impactt, as well as the validation and recognition from other independent organisations in the field, FIFA has every reason to trust in the SC’s resolve and commitment to protecting the workers involved in the preparation and delivery of the FIFA World Cup...