FIFA World Cup: Controversies, extravaganza and bizarre build-up as contentious Qatar 2022 gets underway

Doha: At two minutes to midnight, the very last World Cup team arrived in Qatar — not just any team, but the five-time world champions Brazil. Amid a sea of yellow and green flags, shirts, and scarfs, police sirens were wailing, the lights blinding and in the last few meters of the journey, security guards escorted the bus to its final destination: Westin Hotel in the heart of Doha.

No one got a glimpse of Neymar or Vinicius Junior, but the supporters, a mix of Brazilians and Indians, remained joyous. They had World Cup fever. Mohamed Suhail from Kerala smiled. An accountant who moved to Doha four years ago, he first watched Brazil and Ricardo Kaka in action at the 2010 World Cup on TV. Living right next door, he had walked down to the Westin. With a decent salary, respectable working hours, and good living conditions, he enjoys life in Doha. In that sense, Suhail is privileged. In the Qatari capital, the main host city for the World Cup, obscene luxury and extraordinary misery go hand in hand. FIFA World Cup:  Fixtures  |  Results  |  Points Table  |  Squads  |  Records It was no different twelve years ago when then FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his executive committee stunned the world by awarding the hosting rights to Qatar. The following day, with a typically astute assessment, the International Herald Tribune headlined: ‘FIFA Tilts Future of Soccer Toward East’. Blatter defended the decision: ‘Never has a World Cup gone to the east of Europe, never to the Middle East. And Arabia has been waiting.’ But Blatter, FIFA and the hosts had not foreseen the tsunami that was about to come: the DOJ came after the world federation’s top officials, Blatter exited and FIFA’s reputation never recovered. And Qatar? The gulf nation became a byword for human rights abuses and labour law problems — shifting the criticism away from endless allegations of corruption in the bidding process. Qatar’s human rights record became a part of the public discourse. In 2013, The Guardian published an investigation into the shocking conditions migrant construction workers endured in Qatar, toiling in the heat and living in squalid camps. It kick-started a decade-long deluge of media reports and investigations, notably by Norwegian magazine Josimar, portraying human misery caused by deceptive recruitment practices, wage abuses and passport confiscation enabled by the kafala or sponsorship system. Those labour abuses extended to the majority of Qatar’s migrant workforce and not just World Cup workers. FIFA World Cup: Get to know the 32 teams that have qualified   In Arabic, kafala literally means “guardianship”. It ties a “foreign” worker to a sponsor, who yields “unchecked powers over migrant workers, allowing them to evade accountability for labour and human rights abuses, and leaves workers beholden to debt and in constant fear of retaliation”, according to Human Rights Watch. The system is prevalent in the Gulf countries. Qatar’s nation-building exercise and expression of soft power didn’t go quite as planned. The tournament host burned money like there was no tomorrow — $220bn on a macro scale, including $7bn in World Cup development — to build the state-of-the-art venues, including the gold-clad Lusail stadium, hotels, roadways, metro and other infrastructure — on the back of migrant workers, who so often face passport confiscation, wage abuses, endless working hours among other abuses. They live and work in Doha, making the World Cup possible. Indians, Bangladeshi, Gambians, Kenyans and many others who long for their home. And in part that is the point — Gianni Infantino’s home is Doha, his own personal sojourn in extraordinary luxury. On the eve of the World Cup, the FIFA president did what he had told 32 World Cup participants not to do — he played politics and got dragged into political and ideological battles. In dramatic fashion, angered by the media, Infantino lost the plot. He became a mix between Sepp Blatter and Donald Trump — FIFA’s former corrupt chairman and the former controversial president of the United States. He said: “Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arab. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker.” FIFA World Cup: A look at Qatar's eight stadiums [caption id=“attachment_11658041” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] FIFA President Gianni Infantino speaks at a press conference ahead of the World Cup in Qatar. AP[/caption] Unfortunately, Infantino, who accused the media of forgetting all disabled people, then remembered women. In his extraordinary, one-hour soliloquy, he just about forgot half of the planet. But it did not matter, his attack on Western media was relentless, emboldened by the knowledge that he will get re-elected next year based on the support of smaller football nations around the world. The president of Vanuatu insisted that his family also belonged to the FIFA family. And that is how Infantino will remain in power. It begs the question: what direction the global game is going in? Whatever valid points Infantino made, they will carry little weight and get lost in the endless diatribe he produced. The FIFA president is a sign of the times, often wildly out of control and in need of assistance. However, for the next month, the direction is Doha, a city like no other, highlighting the endless discrepancies, the endless battle for the game, and the endless back-and-forth between a minority of critics and decision-makers. In 2030, Saudi Arabia wants to potentially co-host the World Cup — in a grand show to yet again launder its reputation on the global stage. Perhaps football has lost its way, but on Sunday, no one will remember when Qatar kicks off the greatest show on earth. **Click here to read more FIFA World Cup stories** Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. 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