Nearly two years before the U.S. men’s national team took the field for its first World Cup qualifier, officials at U.S. Soccer began planning for a tournament in Qatar they knew would bring significant challenges, and raise important issues, should the U.S. make it there.
FIFA’s decision to select Qatar as a World Cup host has been under great scrutiny due to several issues regarding the country’s human rights record, including: workers’ rights and the country’s use of the kafala system for migrant workers; the reported deaths of hundreds of migrant workers tied to the building of soccer stadiums; women’s rights; and laws that criminalize homosexuality.
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Ahead of its potential participation in the tournament played amid all those issues, U.S. Soccer says it established a process built around education, planning and action.
“We wanted to think about: What can we do to help make a positive impact in Qatar? What is a legacy we can leave being at the World Cup?” U.S. Soccer chief communications officer Neil Buethe said. “There has been a lot of progress and change in Qatar. There is debate about how much progress and whether it’s come quickly enough, but the key is making sure the progress continues. We believe the World Cup can be a catalyst for change, hopefully, in Qatar and across the region. We know more needs to be done, no one thinks it has been good enough to this point, but if we can push that progress, that’s a positive approach. It’s about awareness, about talking about these things and finding ways to ensure that the progress that has been made will continue.”
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Those efforts began as far back as December 2019, when U.S. Soccer officials first started meeting internally about strategy. Officials at U.S. Soccer later met with representatives from the International Labor Organization (ILO), Amnesty International, the Centre for Sport and Human Rights and the Qatari government’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, among other organizations, to better understand the issues in-country and how the federation might be able to help effect change.
Once the team qualified for the tournament, Buethe said U.S. Soccer took several steps to ensure the vendors it is working with in Qatar were compliant with reforms in Qatar around workers’ rights, including hiring a compliance officer on the ground in Qatar to meet weekly with vendors it is using for the tournament — including the hotel and transportation companies. The federation is also seeking to join the UEFA Working Group in supporting compensation for workers at the Qatar World Cup.
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U.S. Soccer has also had conversations with the Centre for Sport and Human Rights about how to best approach the LGBTQ+ issues in Qatar. Homosexuality is still illegal in Qatar and is punishable by one to three years in prison. U.S. Soccer plans to have rainbow flags at its fan events and is exploring ways to incorporate it into the team’s presence throughout the country. The federation is also exploring vendors and places in Qatar that are LGBTQ+-friendly so that it can compile a list for fans.
“Our plan is to provide a welcoming safe space for all of our fans that are in Qatar,” Buethe said. “We’ve talked to (supporters’ groups) the American Outlaws and Barra 76 about this and what we can do, and we’ll continue having conversations with them. We are working through it, but we want to make it as welcoming and as safe for everyone as possible.”
The federation also worked to educate players about issues in Qatar and support any efforts they might make when playing in the tournament, which is expected to be built around the “Be the Change” messaging the team first launched in response to the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. The federation first gave presentations to players about Qatar in the summer of 2021 during the Nations League and Gold Cup tournament so that players better understood some of the issues they might be asked about in the lead up to the tournament.They met again with player leadership after the team qualified for the tournament.
“We wanted to update them on, ‘Here is what we’re thinking about in terms of U.S. Soccer taking these things head on,’” Buethe said. “We don’t want to stick our heads in the sand and avoid these issues. We want to think through how we can drive awareness to these things in the right way.”
On the ground in Qatar, U.S. Soccer has tried to support efforts for positive change, or support the changes that have already occurred.
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Qatar leaned heavily on migrant workers from other countries, including Sri Lanka, Nepal, India and Bangladesh, for more than a decade as it built up stadiums and infrastructure to host the World Cup. That includes a new metro rail system, built at an estimated cost of £36 billion ($41 billion), which links most of the venues, as well as new hotels, roads and hospitality sites. Multiple reports indicated that many of the workers arrived under the oppressive kafala system, which limited workers’ ability to leave jobs and gave employers complete control, leading to human rights abuses, to the point where the project cost many migrant workers their lives. The ILO reported last year that Qatar inadequately investigated and reported worker deaths, with autopsies not routinely carried out.
Max Tuñón, the head of the ILO office in Qatar, said several important reforms have been implemented in the country, including the dismantling of much of the kafala system. Workers no longer need permission from employers to change jobs, the country instituted a minimum wage and Qatar passed what Tuñón called, “the most comprehensive legislation on heat stress in the world,” as part of reforms that strengthened occupational safety and health. He also pointed to elected migrant worker representatives as a critical step forward in the region.
Tuñón said Qatar should be proud of the progress they made, but he emphasized that these reforms are also brand new. The World Cup, he said, has accelerated change in the Gulf state at an unprecedented pace, and that has come with its own challenges.
“The reforms are significant and there is a backlash from wider society and also from individual companies when it comes to compliance,” Tuñón said. “The institutions that are enforcing this legislation are also new, the systems are new. So building the capacity of the labor inspectors, building the wage protection system, ensuring that the labor courts see and resolve disputes in a timely manner, it is a process that we’re currently going through. … The systems, while they are now there, are not working as effectively and smoothly as they need to.”
Tuñón expressed a belief that the wave of reform has been incredibly impactful across the region and that it can bring lasting change. He said he is confident there will not be backsliding after the tournament and that Qatar has “a lot to be proud of” in terms of the changes it has made ahead of the tournament. He said the ILO is also hoping to show that these reforms benefit workers, but also benefit employers because there is less labor mobility, fewer costs in recruiting workers internationally and fewer risks in that recruitment.
“It’s important to recognize that these reforms are not just about the World Cup, and we know this because other countries in the region are also undertaking labor reforms that are not hosting the World Cup,” Tuñón said. “These other countries are looking at how they can also dismantle kafala or strengthen protection for workers. All of the countries in the Gulf are competing for global talent and foreign investment. All of the countries in the Gulf are trying to diversify their economies. Qatar has a ‘National Vision 2030’ which states it wants a competitive, diversified, knowledge-based economy.
“Now, you cannot reach those targets and those goals if you do not make fundamental reforms to your labor market. You cannot attract global talent and thus global investment, foreign investment, if you don’t have a place that is attractive for workers to come. Why would you come to Qatar versus the U.S. or Singapore or Thailand or wherever, if you couldn’t leave the country without permission from your employer, where you can’t change employers freely, or you don’t believe that you’re going to get access to justice if your wages are not paid? So these reforms really will, I believe, continue beyond the World Cup. Now whether it will be implemented with the same pace I think is difficult to assess.”
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U.S. Soccer hired Lisa Saad, the former executive director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Qatar, as a compliance officer to meet with vendors, including the Kempinski Hotel where the U.S. team will be staying during its time at the tournament. Saad meets weekly with the hotel and hotel employees to ensure they are in compliance with labor regulations in Qatar, and has been in-country since 2016.
Tuñón said the Qatari Supreme Committee regularly audits hotels to ensure they are in compliance with new laws, but that there are many hotels that remain problematic. Both Saad and Tuñón said issues come up especially with subcontractors who hire out employees for those hotels in areas like security, cleaning, landscaping and valet.
Both also said there is still significant work to be done in several areas, including issues with recruitment fees for migrant workers coming to Qatar. Workers often pay companies to secure visas — from several hundred to as much as a few thousand dollars — and then arrive in Qatar in debt. Some of those workers are being paid as little as $275 monthly, which is the minimum wage in Qatar. It is illegal to pay recruitment fees in Qatar, but studies have shown that workers have paid billions in fees in their home countries to secure jobs in Qatar.
Joint committees, organized by the ILO, help to train hotels about the roles and responsibilities of worker and management representatives, to teach employees how to report workplace discrimination or harassment and also to help companies develop policies. They also give a voice to worker representatives at those companies, with three employee representatives meeting with three management representatives monthly. While Tuñón said that “well over 60 companies” have agreed to the process, joint committees are not yet mandatory. The ILO approached every football association coming to Qatar to help support in building those committees, and U.S. Soccer was one of the federations that did volunteer to assist and take part in establishing those committees with their vendors.
Saad said the Kempinski, where the U.S. team will be staying, is at a green status with both the Supreme Committee and Impact Limited, a UK-based auditing company that works with the Supreme Committee. U.S. Soccer was aware that Liverpool was set to stay in that hotel in 2019, but pulled out due to ethical concerns.
“Knowing that information, we had direct conversations with the hotel general manager about the situation with Liverpool to learn what changes have been made since then, explain to him our requirements and implemented a process to ensure we are doing everything possible to handle situations that arise and are focused on worker welfare,” Buethe said.
Buethe said the U.S. worked with the ILO and Centre for Sports and Human Rights to put together a checklist for all of its vendors, including the Kempinski, the building where players’ families will stay, the transportation group it hired and others, to ensure there are no issues in regards to workplace safety, recruitment fees or any other violations. The checklist includes staff paid at least the national minimum wage (including by subcontractors), accommodation that is up to accordance with national law and Supreme Committee requirements, a workplace health and safety policy, full access to passports for employees, limits on working hours in accordance with new laws and policy on recruitment fees to reimburse fees paid, among other things.
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Buethe also said the Kempinski has changed subcontractors to ensure the companies they hire are also in compliance with current laws.
“We can never say an issue won’t arise,” Buethe said. “But we’ve taken these important steps to make sure everyone we are working with is following the regulations required.”
Saad said the Kempinski “have put internal processes in place to identify any recruitment fees,” which they then reimburse, and are recruiting employees directly as much as possible to avoid issues.
“So, as part of their welcome packet, part of their onboarding process, they go through an interviewing process with each one of their employees to identify if they’ve paid anything out of pocket, if what they’ve paid is unreasonable,” Saad said. “They’re also working in a lot of the main countries where a lot of employees come from, Sri Lanka, Nepal, they’re working through the Qatar offices that are already established there.”
Saad said she toured the facility where the Kempinski houses employees, which includes 36 villas that are “standalone houses.” Those houses are seven-bedrooms and no more than 13 people are allowed per house. She said those bedrooms are about the size of an American dorm room.
“There are no bunk beds, they’re not stacking people in there, everybody has their own space,” Saad said. “There is a bathroom for every two people in the house, the houses are fully-furnished, they have full kitchens, washers and dryers. There is a great clubhouse where they have a pool, they have social activities and they’ve got two people I have met with that are full-time property managers that are on property for anything they might need.”
Buethe said the federation is aware there are areas they are not going to be able to control. But in areas where they can make an impact, the federation is hoping to push change and ensure its presence in Qatar is supporting the reforms that have already been put in place.
Follow along with the World Cup 2022 bracket throughout the knockout stage
(Top photo of the Kempinski in 2016: Ed Reeve/View Pictures/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
