Communication, Censorship & Hypocrisy at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022
The World Cup is a multi-cultural multi-language event with millions of audiences across the globe. Not only it’s the world stage for the teams and footballers to shine, but it’s the result of the hard work of numerous professionals on and off the pitch across multiple industries.
From the visible professionals such as footballers and sports journalists to the invisible ones, such as construction workers that made the stadiums, to the different figures working in the stadium preparing the pitch or involved in ticketing and security, to the hospitality staff all did their best to make this event possible
In such a global event at this scale, communication is essential. When we speak about communication, it’s impossible not to consider the Freedom of Speech and the Freedom of Expression. Each host country tries to show the world selected nice parts of their country while hiding the imperfections. However, not all countries go to such extent as Qatar did to limit the media and force censorship while FIFA watches.
The choice of Qatar as the host country for this year’s World Cup has been controversial, from the beginning and raised multiple questions regarding the human rights conditions in this country and concerns about the possible censorship during the World Cup.
Now that we are halfway through the tournament, there have been multiple cases of censorship, and very questionable behaviour of the Qatari officials, which I would like to discuss in this article, that not only confirms all those concerns but demonstrates the hypocrisy of FIFA.
This World Cup is a special reminder for the free world that Freedom of Speech is not something to take for granted, but something to fight for everywhere in the world. Rights aren’t given but taken, and when there’s lots of money and interests involved, even organizations like FIFA can close an eye on the violation of basic human rights. Which makes it our duty, to denounce censorship, and make these institutions accountable for their choices.
Pre-World Cup Concerns
Qatar has been accused of imposing restrictions on media covering the World Cup. These restrictions were within a list of conditions that outlets must have agreed to when applying for a filming permit from the Qatari authorities to only “capture photography and videography of the most popular locations around the country”.
According to the terms forced on broadcasters, recording at government buildings, universities, places of worship and hospitals was prohibited, along with filming at residential properties and private businesses.
International television crews in Qatar for the Fifa World Cup were banned from interviewing people in their own homes, to make it difficult for them to investigate reported abuses, such as the mistreatment of migrant workers, or to conduct interviews on subjects people may be reluctant to discuss in public, such as LGBTQ+ rights.
On 15 November FIFA promised to “guarantee the best possible working conditions for the media participating in the tournament.” However, this promise has not been fully kept and many sports journalists have said they are worried about being arrested, subjected to violence or even arbitrarily detained by the Qatari government.
This has led to an appeal by Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the Union of Sports Journalists in France (UJSF) and the Swedish Sports Journalists Association ( SSF) on FIFA on 20 November on the eve of the FIFA World Cup kick-off to ensure that freedom of the press would be respected during this event, and to underline that media freedom violations during (or after) the tournament would not be acceptable.
FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022
National World Cup Committee ensured everyone in a tweet that “Thousands of journalists report from Qatar freely without interference each year." Qatari Government Officials claimed that media are free in Qatar.
Rasmus Tantholdt Case
A Danish journalist called Rasmus Tantholdt was reporting live on Danish television TV2 when a golf cart pulled up and one of the security officials placed his hand in front of the camera. The image went black, however, the TV reporter can be heard saying "Mister, you invited the whole world to come here. Why can't we film? It's a public place." The footage continued, showing Tantholdt presenting his media accreditation to the officials and responding to their threats to destroy the camera.
Qatari authorities later apologized for this incident.
One Love Armband
The “OneLove” armband – which features the outline of a heart striped in different colours – was intended to be worn at the World Cup by captains from England, Wales, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland, to promote inclusion and display solidarity with people of different genders and sexual identities.
Khya Gott, a representative for Pride in Football says that the “OneLove” campaign isn’t just about LGBTQ rights, but ending discrimination in all its guises.
Several months before the World Cup and during UEFA Nations League games, team captains wore the “OneLove” armband. However, Gianni Infantino FIFA President pleaded with countries to let football take centre stage ahead of the World Cup in Qatar. FIFA regulations state that captains must wear armbands that are provided by the governing body, even though they officially “support all legitimate causes, including ‘OneLove.’”
Hours before England's match against Iran, where their captain Harry Kane was scheduled to wear the armband, FIFA announced that “any player wearing the armband would receive a yellow card, putting them in danger of being sent off or banned from a later game in the tournament.
The seven European federations, in a joint statement, said they asked their captains not to wear the “OneLove” armband as they couldn’t “put players in a position where they could face sporting sanctions including bookings.”
Former England International Alex Scott wore the One Love armband on air as she presented the BBC’s Qatar World Cup coverage as England played Iran in their opening match.
Any time censorship is posed on people, they will find creative ways to denounce and defy it. And that’s what happened in the case of German players who covered their mouths with their hands ahead of their game against Japan, to show that FIFA has prevented them from using their voices to speak up about the issues at the World Cup and express their feelings about the “OneLove” controversy.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser wore the armband with Infantino sitting close by during her country’s 2-1 defeat against Japan.
An American fan Brian Davis who was wearing a rainbow armband was asked to leave Al Thumama Stadium in Qatar ahead of the US-Iran match. He told the Danish Journalist Rasmus Tantholdt that the guards confronted him at his seat “twisted his arm” and “were very aggressive.”
Iran Case
Given the ongoing revolution in Iran for over 70 days and the heavy crackdown of the regime on protesters, Qatar World Cup was a huge global platform for Iranians to send a message of defiance to their country leaders.
Earlier Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi expressed the regime’s concern over possible problems that may happen during the FIFA World Cup, such as people chanting slogans against the regime during matches or players making possible statements about the situation, and the ongoing killing of citizens in Iran. Therefore the Islamic Republic has contacted Qatari officials regarding this issue to find ways “to predict and prevent possible problems."
Leaked documents later prove the agreement of collaboration between the two governments. There is also evidence that the Qatari officials provided information about all of the Iranian spectators to the Iranian authorities. These people could face arrest and torture in Iran. Qataris refuse this claim.
Ahead of their opener at Qatar 2022 against England, the Iranian team refused to sing the Islamic Republic’s anthem which earned them widespread praise among Iranians. They however sang or more precisely mumbled the anthem during the next two matches due to the threats of torture, imprisonment and harassment to their families. Reports say that IRGC guards were present dressed as the technical staff and spectators to control all their actions.
During the first match, there were many Iranians carrying placards or waving Iran’s ancient flag with the Lion and Sun emblem or a simple three-colour flag with #WomanLifeFreedom which is the slogan of the current revolution, to show their opposition to the regime. However, from the second match, Qatari police in close collaboration with the Islamic Republic banned anyone with any sign of protest from entering the stadium. They even set up patrols during matches to stop and expel those who have managed to sneak in some flags or other symbols in solidarity with the protests back home.
Qataris even collaborated with the Iranian regime on controlling the broadcast of the matches. Qatar provided a live clean long shot of the stadium together with close-up shots of ONLY the pro-regime spectators and censored anyone holding flags or an expression of solidarity with the uprising. With all this censorship, however, the Iranian state television IRIB3 had to mute the live feed on a few occasions as the anti-regime chants could be heard!
In addition to the Iranian officials and state media reporters, more than 22,000 free tickets were given to the Islamic Republic’s Football Federation. There are videos and photos of Bangladeshi and Pakistani citizens – reportedly workers who built Qatar’s stadiums under inhumane working conditions – who were paid to pose as Iranian football fans, carrying the Islamic Republic’s flags.
Post-World Cup Concerns
The concerns have grown when a media investigation found solid grounds for suspecting that Qatar has set up a system for spying on journalists and that it actively recruited hackers to break into the private email accounts of three reporters who had written stories criticising the Gulf emirate.
I started this article by talking about the importance of communication. What’s the message of this World Cup?
Qatar has been a very controversial venue for this World Cup, and a disaster for Freedom of Speech as we saw in these examples. Time will show what interests were behind this choice. As Sepp Blatter said, choosing Qatar was a mistake. I really hope that this experience will teach international organisations to make better decisions in the future, and put human values and Freedom of Speech before their interests.
