FIFA stands for Fédération Internationale de Football Association which means International Association Football Federation. FIFA is a non-profit organization, and it invests the majority of its income it generates in the development of the game as well as in its social programmes such as (Education for All, Protect Children, and Save the Planet). FIFA was established in the year 1904 by Robert Guerin. He was a journalist and was also actively involved in Football as a secretary of the Football Department of the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA).

This year the 22nd edition of the world cup was organised in Qatar and 32 teams took part in it. FIFA is one of the largest and biggest sports tournaments that is organised in the world. The viewership for this event every time breaks several records. In 2018, crossing over 3.5 billion views over TV and digital platforms which is about half of the world’s population, FIFA broke all the records. The revenue generated for this 4-year term (2018-2022) is yet to be announced but as far as reports it has already generated record revenue of about $7.5 billion. FIFA doesn’t have to invest even a single penny even in organizing any of the matches. All the costs are borne by the organising country. Apart from that, it is also exempted from paying taxes. It has been reported that Qatar spend $220 billion this year for hosting the tournament but it also includes investment in some future resources such as: building a modern metro network, airport expansion, building new hotels, and development of new districts in their capital city Doha. In Qatar, all matches were organized at eight venues out of which seven are built especially for FIFA. The cost of building these seven venues as per government reports is about $6.5 billion. Qatar was selected in 2010 to organize the World Cup this year. It has been allegedly claimed that there has been massive corruption in the selection of Qatar as the organizing country for FIFA'22. “Gracia Reports” confirms all these allegations on Qatar. Soon after being selected, then FIFA president Sepp Blatter said that this is a very good initiative and the decision that new countries are given an opportunity to organize such tournaments. This was the very first time a Middle Eastern country was allowed to organize FIFA and this is an exemplary thing for football, but later he called it out as a mistake. The main point to heed attention to is that Qatar never promoted Football in their own country still they opted to host FIFA. Several eye-catching incidents have occurred since then such as throwing money on the FIFA president, top FIFA executives being fired and investigations being set up on them, and the man because of whom Qatar got hosting being permanently banned.
Some major controversies that surrounded the FIFA'22 tournament are:

1. Migrant Exploitation

Many workers from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Uganda, and Kenya were forcefully made to work as labours in Qatar. These workers had to face severe brutality. They can't change their jobs, can't leave the country, their passports were seized and were made to wait for several months for getting paid. They were also not given any insurance. These workers were majorly involved in the construction of stadiums and other necessary infrastructure in the country. Reportedly about 6500 South Asian migrants died since 2010 here due to working in extreme heat and facing temperatures of about 45-48 degrees Celsius. Everyone in the middle east region is rich and won’t work in such high temperatures. To eradicate and fight this problem they have the “Kafala" system which has already faced severe backlash from several countries. This system has been imposed for several years now but has caught the limelight, especially when the entire scenario came into public this year.

2. Lack of Security Forces

Qatar doesn’t even have security forces. For providing security to the players they rented security forces from Pakistan and the emails for the same got leaked and have been published publicly in the Sunday Times.

3. Clothing Ban

Visitors were made to wear clothes that covered their shoulders and knees. Cut sleeves were prohibited and males were not allowed to roam shirtless. Even women were not allowed to roam freely without any males on the streets of Qatar.

4. Ban on LGBTQ Community

The LGBTQ community is still not accepted in Qatar. They still don't accept the community and pose a severe threat to them. The display of rainbow flags was also banned in Qatar. Many people condemned this and portrayed their disagreement on the same with the help of several protests. Many incidents of strikes and protests were reported in front of the stadiums as well.

5. Alcohol Ban

Budweiser which is an alcohol brand, made a deal of $75 million with FIFA so that alcohol of their brand can only be sold during the matches in the stadium. But just before the beginning of the tournament, 2 days before, they were told that no alcohol will be sold during the tournament as Qatar banned beer for World cup stadiums. Many people also expressed their concerns over the same as a long-old tradition was stopped this year due to which many people again questioned why FIFA is being organised in Qatar. To solve the same issue, special beer zones were built in the stadium, but alcohol was so expensive in these corners that very less viewers could afford them.

6. Corruption in Hosting Rights

Since 2010 out of 22 members more than half of the members of the FIFA executive committee either have been implicated or investigated for alleged corruption or other bad practices. Many big brands such as Adidas, Fly Emirates, Visa, Sony and Coca- Cola have also released statements concerning the issue. Allegations have been put over stating that FIFA was bribed to organize the world cup in Qatar.

7. Health Issues and Investment Losses

Despite having temperature ranges of 45-48 degree Celsius which might implicate serious health issues for football players, FIFA agreed upon organizing the tournament in Qatar. Generally, to avoid clashes with other English leagues and gain maximum viewership FIFA is organized in June/July. But for the very first time, it was organized in the month of November and December even though several other football leagues in Europe run over this duration. Because of this multiple leagues and brands all over the world are also experiencing losses of several billion dollars. Fox (the official broadcasting partner of FIFA) also asked for compensation because of losses it will have to face due to other leagues as FIFA being organised in November- December instead of June and July. To suppress them, without any bidding, FIFA gave its airing rights for 2026 to Fox at a very subsidized rate.

FIFA makes a country sign 7 guarantees/declarations based on visa and immigration, work permits and labour law, safety and security, commercial rights, telecommunications, waiver and legal issues and tax exemptions before giving hosting permission to any country. FIFA have so many demands from a country before permitting them to organize the world cup apart from bearing all the expenses. Even after so many restrictions, the reason why still so many countries are interested to organize the world cup is:

1. Display of Soft Power

Many nations use this as a platform to give a message to the entire world that their nation holds the power to organise such big tournaments depicting the nation as enough strong and financially secure and stable so that financial investments from other nations can come. But because of so many controversies in the case of Qatar, it is quite less probable that investment may come here.

2. Boost in Infrastructure

The common people living there can make use of the stadiums for themselves after the tournament. This will lead to a boost in the sports infrastructure of the nation. But it is observed in many cases that the stadium built for this purpose is later converted into a parking lot and there is zero footfall in the stadium. Sometimes the current infrastructure also gets overburdened because of this. Several people are forcefully relocated and made to shift to backward areas and slums so that these stadiums, beautiful roads, parking lots and other necessary infrastructure can be built.

3. GDP Boost

As tourists from other nations will come to see the match they will bring money, opt for hotels and see local places. This will boost tourism and improve the overall GDP of the nation. In the Qatar world cup, it is expected that about 1.2 million visitors will come and add about $7 billion to the economy.

Everything comes with a fixed set of advantages as well as losses. Looking at the losses associated with it, developing nations such as India and Brazil have no advantage in organizing such tournaments as compared to developed nations. Rather than money can be used for the welfare of the residents of that nation. Developed nations can opt for organizing some big tournaments to showcase their nation's power to the entire world.

---

---