Every four years, one of the biggest worldwide sporting events happens that captivates fans around the world. No, it’s not the Olympics.
It is the FIFA World Cup! Football or Soccer, depending on your location around the world, is the most popular sport worldwide and that is shown every four years when the World Cup takes place.
The qualification matches to get into the World Cup bring in far more viewers than most other sports, including the Ruoff Mortgage 500 NASCAR Race.
The 2022 World Cup is set to take place in Qatar, one of the richest countries in the Middle East. This is also the first time that a World Cup will take place in a Middle Eastern country, making history for the historic football series.
But getting ready for the World Cup in Qatar has not come without controversy and several issues that are drawing negative attention.
Let’s look at the biggest issues the 2022 World Cup is facing as we move closer to the November start.
Climate
Climate was a big issue when deciding where the 2022 World Cup would take place. Usually, this event is a summertime event held in temperate climates. But the idea of a Winter World Cup has become more and more popular so that it does not interfere with other major leagues from around the world.
However, the World Cup is also on pace and aligns with the same years that the Winter Olympics take place, which usually take place in January and February.
This left November and December as the choice months to hold a Winter World Cup. Even with the risk of many different holidays taking place during the time of year, it was deemed the best fit.
But this also meant that the World Cup would have to take place in a warm country near the equator or in a Southern Hemisphere country. Thus it landed in Qatar.
But the heat of the desert in Qatar was also a pressing issue. But Qatar guaranteed that through the use of solar power, each of the five stadiums it would build to house the World Cup matches would be equipped with air cooling technologies that they have developed for just such occasions.
So fans and players can comfortably be assured that they will not be watching or playing matches in the sweltering heat.
Human Rights
During the construction of stadiums and infrastructure that will support the influx of people who are bound to migrate to Qatar during the World Cup, there were many allegations of poor worker treatment and also of slavery taking place.
Many construction workers in Qatar are migrant workers who are overworked and underpaid. There has also been a slew of deaths over the last decade to migrant workers that shows that these workers may be exposed to dangerous work environments and forced to work too many hours.
During the construction of stadiums and important infrastructure, many rules and laws have changed around migrant workers and their rights as issues have been exposed.
With the limelight of the World Cup on Qatar, they were pressured into making changes to right the wrongs of what the world perceives as human rights violations.
Qatar has also had to comply with other FIFA rules that stipulate tolerance of all people, including the LGBT community, which is deemed illegal in Qatar.
Qatar also would have to be tolerant of Israel participating in the country if they qualified. This has since become a moot point as Israel failed to advance through qualifying.
Russia…
With the current status of Russia and Ukraine’s participation in World Cup qualification matches up in the air, it will be interesting to see what comes of this clash between the two countries.
FIFA has officially suspended Russia from allowing their national teams to participate in any qualification matches, which could jeopardize their ability to qualify for and participate in the World Cup, which it hosted in 2018.
Ukraine, as it is under attack, has asked FIFA for postponement of their qualifying matches, which were set to take place soon. As the invasion of Ukraine continues to unfold, it will be interesting to see where Ukraine and Russia’s involvement in the World Cup falls.
