The Underworld Podcast - Scammers, Traffickers and Bribes: The Dirty, Criminal Secrets Plaguing FIFA’s World Cup in Qatar - featuring Philippe AuclairDraft Episode for Nov 29, 2022

Episode Date: November 29, 2022

As things heat up in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Sean meets soccer journalist Philippe Auclair in a London pub (of course) to talk about the many crimes stalking the Beautiful Game—from bribery and fraud within FIFA, to the covered-up deaths of workers in Doha, and crypto and betting scams that have slipped into the sport’s top tiers. Subscribe for bonuses on Itunes and Patreon.com/Theunderworldpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice-cold drinks could be so fire? Try them all now at McDonald's. Refreshers contain caffeine. Copyright 2026, the Coca-Cola Company. Sprite is a registered trademark of the Coca-Cola Company. A desert camp outside the Katari capital city of Doha, 2014. 65 construction workers, most of them Nepalese, are trapped, living in conditions unfit for animals, and losing hope.

Their employers haven't paid them a dime for a year, despite the promises of relative riches back home at a ramshackle agents office in Kathmandu. Back there, the men, and they are all young healthy men. have been offered contracts worth three, four or more times a regular salary. This for them is a chance to leapfrog their poor nation's economy, send their kids to college, maybe even start a business of their own. But when they arrive in Doha, a different kind of reality sets in. The men's passports are taken, they're stripped of their rights, and given another very different contract.

This one doesn't say foreman or manager, or any of the mid-rank roles, so many of them have been offered back home. Almost all are designated labourers, and the bottom line on this so-called double contract, which is highly illegal all around the world, is a lot, lot lower than the first one. The men quickly realised they've been duped, trafficked into a system known locally as Khafala.

A sponsor has paid for everything, wages, visas, accommodation. The men are starting in debt, and they may never crawl out. It's a modern form of slave labour, run by Qataris and foreigners looking to get a toehold in the construction of the biggest sports tournament of them all, the FIFA World Cup, awarded in dubious circumstances to a Gulf Peninsula with about as much football heritage as the average Midwestern US city. Worker rights are just one of a slew of scandals and crimes to beset the event,

But they're arguably the most egregious and the most deadly. Thousands of young men, South Asians, Africans and others, fall foul of Khafowla, forced to work in blistering heat and in conditions resulting in a death toll of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands. Says one security guard from Ghana to a reporter, quote, You don't get any food, getting water is an issue. This is a five-star hotel, but I can go half a day, without water. It makes you wonder, what kind of a hotel is it? Well, this is the reality of FIFA's

World Cup and the organised crime that has built in. For many of those trapped in Qatar's migrant worker camps and standing on the doors of opulent five-star hotels, the only way out is in a body bag. This is the Underworld podcast. Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the podcast where we dig into the latest horrible crimes going on everywhere. You name it, something awful going on. Chances are we're going to cover it. I'm Sean Williams in London. I'm joined by Danny Gold in New York City.

I've just spent an entire day writing, well, about 100 words about weed in Nepal. Danny, what about you? Not much, man, just kind of getting things up to speed since we came back. You know, we've got patreon.com, which has to know our podcast where we have all the bonus stuff, but I just set up the iTunes version of that. So now you don't have to go to Patreon if you want to. to get bonus material, ad-free episodes.

Even, I think we might even put the end of some episodes behind a paywall eventually. You can just do it right from iTunes. And if I can figure out how to do it on Spotify, I'm going to do that too. Yeah, I think the episode, the bonus we just put up is about Hezbollah and their criminal activities from South America to West Africa and everything like that. So definitely, if you're interested, you know, give it a listen. Cool, yeah. So we're back.

I mean, this is episode two, new series. contract shenanigans over and I don't know if you've been living in a rock or just in America maybe but there's this pretty big football tournament going on in the Gulf and it seems like it might catch on and I saw you shit posting about the England team

the other night so I guess you've been enjoying it too right? Yeah I mean you know this is like your sport and you got lucky that the US didn't beat you so like I'm gonna you know I'm gonna mention that yeah yeah I mean that's completely true anyway on that note I kind of caught up

while back with football writer musician general Renaissance man, Philippe O'Clair in the West End of London. And we talked about the various crimes associated with this FIFA World Cup. And trust me, there are tons. And if you don't know Philippe's work, look him up, he's been one of the most dedicated

and relentless journalist critiquing this tournament. And he's a fascinating guy to chat to about it all. Yeah, anything I'm missing at all? Do we need to talk about? I guess we've got merch maybe coming soon. We've got a bit of a gap in that at the moment, right? Yeah, we're trying to figure that out right now. So don't fret.

We'll get that up soon. And yeah, I'll just let you guys take it from here as I bow out as you discuss soccer. All right. Let's kick it off. Hi, guys, and welcome to the show. And from the top, you might hear some uncharacteristic noise, which is because this podcast has finally given into destiny. And I'm coming to you from a lovely pub in the middle of London on a gray.

It's not so gray and gloomy now, actually. It's quite nice. But it'll probably change in half an hour. On a Monday afternoon, I'm joined today by writer, author, musician, Philippe O'Clair. So football expert and more importantly for this show, football shithousery expert.

And in case anyone cares, I think I read you also the first Frenchman to write for Wisden, which in my book makes you a superhero, frankly. Yes, for Wisden and the cricketer. That's beautiful, great. Well, maybe we can get on to that in a little bit. Thank you for joining us, Philipp.

So I'm not sure if anyone's aware, but as we're recording this, we're about five weeks away, from something called the World Cup. It's going to be held in Qatar. It feels like a strange thing to say even this far down the line. And we've done on the show

some things about FIFA and corruption. I mean, you could write several volumes of books about that. We did a show recently about Jal Havelange and his connections to Brazilian gangsters back in the day. But, Philippe, you've been writing about the scandals and crimes that have enveloped the World Cup all the way back to its announcement. And in 2013, in fact, you wrote a piece for Eurosport

claiming that the whole thing was a quote, shambles. Do you stand by that? What was that? Well, yes, I do stand by that. And it stems from an investigation I did for France football, which I started in, first started for good in 2012. I first published a piece in The Blizzard and in which I was talking about a meeting that had taken place between the French president, Nicola Sarkozy at the time, the president of UEFA and Vice President of FIFA Michel Platini and some Qatar dignitaries, including the Crown Prince, who is now the Emir of Qatar, after replacing his father in 2013.

I think my editor at France Football, it caught his attention. He said, why not you write about this for France football? I said, yes, okay, fine. And he said, okay, Carter Blanche, I'm going to pair you with somebody else who is used to investigations of this kind, called Eric Chappelle. And I got on famously with Eric,

and we started working on it. we worked for six months, then we published 30th January 2013, the first of our pieces, so-called Catar Gate, and which we carried on writing for something like two and a half years. So, yes, I was in early. I threw the hat in early, so to speak, and it literally took over my life, yes, for the best part of three years. And I haven't stopped since then, but I've also investigating other things now, not just what happened for Qatar 2022. Even though, even though I have to say there's enough material there probably to last a lifetime. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, when you started researching this, did you expect to find the amount of information or the amount of corruption and crime that you've uncovered since? No, absolutely not. At the beginning, it's a hunch. Obviously, you always need a source to start with, which was my case. I had a very, very good source.

Who told me about this meeting at the Elise Palace. but what I didn't realize is that how this would capture many people's imaginations or attentions and it kind of snowballed and the more we were unwrapping

the more we found and the more we realized we didn't know much it was a bit like a past the past or at a children's party and you never get to the end so it's like layer after layer after layer after layer after layer after layer after layer and then we realize, oh hold on a minute because this is actually linked to a strategic

political program from Qatar. This is linked to questions of geopolitics, of national security, which to be honest, absolutely nobody was talking about at the time. And so we went into that direction as well. Then we saw the ramifications in European football with Spanish football in particular, the relationship with Paris Saint-Germont, of course, my goodness. So it became, at the beginning, it was just like one story. And then when we started working for real of that story, you know exactly how it works yourself. As you go, you realize there are plenty of things on the side of the road that you hadn't even seen the first time around. And so we started picking up those pieces and trying to put them together, like this gigantic jigsaw puzzle,

to understand how football was governed, how it could be that we came to a decision which at the time was an aberration, was more than a surprise, was a shock, I think, to anybody involved in football, the reasons why it happened. And also the reasons why the World Cup was not taken away from Qatar, which is also a fascinating subject. So, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that it was random, not at all, but at the beginning, there was an element of, my goodness, this is a very big place, and there are so many doors here, which one do we open first, and that we realized that it's part of this labyrinth.

And to be honest, I'm still in it, and we're still in it now, and we're, what, a few weeks away from kickoff. Yes. I'll try not to get too depressing during the show, because it is incredibly dark a lot of the stuff that's gone on. I guess we can kick off with the big process itself, and I wanted to start. There's a New York Times piece from April last year,

which is the point where U.S. justice, this department officials finally confirmed in public that the reps for Qatar and the 2018 World Cup in Russia also have been bribing FIFA officials. I mean, there's like the least well-kept secret in the world, perhaps. Here's a quote from that story, actually. Prosecutors made the accusations in an indictment charging three media executives and a sports marketing company with a number of crimes, including wire fraud and money laundering in connection with bribes to secure television and marketing rights for international soccer tournament. So in case anyone was wondering whether this show is going to veer from our organized crime remit, then don't worry, we're on it.

And also, the DOJ's point of the finger of three South American officials in particular, this again from the New York Times, quote, one of the officials, Julio Grondona of Argentina died in 2014, another Nicolas Leos died in Paraguay last year, while under house arrest, and fighting extradition to the United States. And the third man, Ricardo Tachera, the former leader of soccer in Brazil, remains in that country which is not how. have an extradition treaty.

Laos and Tecera, I'm sorry if I'm getting the Portuguese wrong, but we're indicted in 2015 on charges related to bribery schemes to sell lucrative soccer rights to sports broadcasters. So it's not only the actual bid itself in which Qatar was going around the world, bribing officials, but it was even Fox, I think Fox as well, were bribing officials for the broadcasting rights. So every single part of this was being picked off by various corrupt officials. Yes.

To be honest, I don't know where the libel laws are for your particular podcast, but we've got to be a little bit careful here. I mean, I have to say I thank you to the DOJ for this paragraph in the indictment because we were waiting for somebody to, I would say, loosen up some of the ties which bound us as journalists from what we're reporting. We could only suggest, elude, we could point a finger at some irregularities. And then they arrive in good FBI fashion. big hobnail boats, bang, you know. And they said it, the Qataris have, of course, denied that

anything like this happened. But those three, I mean, to be honest, Leos de Chara and Don Julio were targets of ours from the very, very beginning. There are also people, interestingly enough, there were also people, the people who were present at a secret meeting between the then emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad, who was deposed by his son Tamim in 2013, which is another extraordinary thing that nobody seems everybody seems to think it's completely normal but there you go and they met him in Rio de Janeiro several months before

the bid several months before the vote took place on December 2010 in Zurich so it is a what you've got to look at is beyond a single case it's like all or two cases which is Russia

2018 which by every you know all the elements we have in our possession indicate that they work the old-fashioned way as in if money changed hands it was in brown paper envelopes and it was actually really very direct not very imaginative at all whereas the others

and I really mean the others were working through different means as in nobody does I mean the old here's 50,000 in a brown paper envelope under your hotel door so that you vote for so and so which is something which has happened a number of times previously in the world of football and soccer

and many other sports by the way and has happened within the Olympic movement for example this is really this is the past the way it works these days and the favored way of doing that is obviously to have payments to corrupt officials to go via several screens of companies and one great way of doing that is through broadcasting rights because what is a World Cup worth? What is an MLS season worth? We don't know. It's whatever you're ready to pay for it. So it's possible for somebody, as it happened in this case, to purchase the broadcasting rights at a very, at a knockdown price

and then sell them on. The same day, it's happened for three times the amount. Pocket the difference. That's your brine. Now, go and prove that. Go and prove that, so bright. It's very, very difficult. So that's the way it's worked. We've also found out that, for example, one of them, I can't be too specific here, if you don't mind, because, again, it's not just libel laws, but it's also subiudici because the investigations are ongoing. One particular football official received a huge amount of money through a bank account that he held in Monaco, and that is on the record. The person who paid that amount of money was not an official from Qatar.

as in official from the organization committee, but was allegedly a very important businessman, who was basically being used as a conduit so that the money could arrive to the right official, so to secure his vote. We're talking to the huge sum of money here. So that's why broadcasting rights are so critical, and that's why

and also because of the confidentiality which goes around this kind of business agreements, it's even more difficult for us, journalists, and for law enforcement agencies to have any idea what the hell is going on here. You know, if I buy it for a million dollars and say it's for $3 million,

it's actually more, 100 million and 300 million, you know, what you're going to say about it, what you're going to do about it? Very often the nature of those deals remains completely unknown. And so, and since you have a structure as well, FIFA, which at the time, and still now,

is characterized by a secrecy, lack of transparency, lack of accountability, lack of good governance, this is a free-for-all. And at the time, everybody, except perhaps the Belgians and the Dutch, everybody was doing things

which were really borderline or had crossed the line, according to FIFA's own statuses. But that didn't make any difference. The most corrupt vote in the history of football took place in the 2nd of December 2010. Qatar got the World Cup for 2022, and the Russians got 2018.

And it's not just those two bids either. I mean, FIFA's got form countries that have hosted the World Cup. I think I was reading on Deutsche Valley that the Germans had done pretty much the same thing for the 2006 World Cup, right? The Germans did the same thing for 2008. and six, there are loads of stories around the South Africa 2010. In fact, it's very difficult to find a recent bid which hasn't got some measure of corruption in it. When we say corruption, by the way,

I always use the word in perhaps in a more general way than people would normally. They would normally say corruption means money has been exchanged. It's not necessarily exchange of money. It can be also enabling somebody to exert more control. over a certain administration. It can be moral corruption. They're completely indissociable. And you look at what, for example, the English bid did. Well, the England bid as well actually got a real wrap on the knuckles from FIFA themselves

for what they were doing. Because, for example, when you propose to hold a friendly and the proceeds of that friendly will go to that federation, and you know that that federation is 100% corrupt, and everything will end up in the pocket of the president of that federation, you know what you're doing. You're actually corrupting. This is no other word for it.

And every single bid, I mean, it had, it's in a way, that vote of 2nd of December 2010 is the culmination of a process of corrupting which had begun years earlier. I mean, the big game changer was, of course, when Sepp Blatter became General Secretary of FIFA and you've talked about Joao Avalanche

but what Sepp did is that he brought in Adidas. I mean that's one actually that was the move that was the big bang of FIFA as a commercial power and when you bring in money of that amount of kind of amount of money obviously you change the nature of the game completely

you create a monster which is actually the word that I believe Joao Avalanche used in a conversation with Sep and and Sep actually said it himself. So because of the huge amounts of money involved, suddenly you are enabling, facilitating and you're laying

the ground, you're making the ground ready and you put a lot of manure on it. A lot of shit on it. And basically yes, you are creating an environment which is right for corruption. And in 2010, FIFA was at a stage of corruption

which was almost unthinkable. in as much you look at the list of the people who took part, excuse me, in the vote on that day, plus the two who had been suspended because they'd been caught on camera, willing to sell their votes to whoever was giving them the most money. You look at them and you look at where they are now, and it's basically a collection of banned, jailed, dead. Anyway, all these people have had an interesting career since then. They've all been found out.

And so that was the apotheosis, I would say, of a certain kind of, of a certain incarnation of FIFA, which has been replaced by a different one. So we've moved from what I would call the corner shop to the hypermarket, as in the sums are even bigger, and the corruption doesn't work the same way at all, because it's not about giving a few million to the delegate from this country or that confederation. No, it's much bigger than that. There's still money changing hands, but it doesn't work the same way at all. It's now become just the same way, like, for example, you used to buy your books from a bookshop, you now buy them where you shouldn't from Amazon. FIFA has gone from bookshop to Amazon. And the world of football years has gone exactly the same way.

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work on FIFA corruption and he was getting pilloried by the organization and by various corners of the media at the time saying he was just flat out fabulous. He has described FIFA as a set Blatter's private mobbed-up club and quote the definition of an organised crime family with loyalty coming from the national associations and goodies trickling down like World Cup tickets, unaudited grants and so on and so forth. So I think there are a bunch of gangsters.

I don't trust them and I don't think anyone should. Sounds pretty much spot on. What did you think about the way that Andrew was kind of treated back then? as well. I think the most astonishing thing is how what he found out was more or less ignored, which is absolutely astonishing when you think about it. He was very much a lone wolf. But the problem is that when you're a journalist and investigating this type of thing, when it comes to sport, very quickly you encounter a major problem. It's the fact that, certainly in Europe

most media organizations have got vested interests in sport in football in particular which is obviously the most important of all games so it could be in several ways like for example

it could be because you've bought the TV rights or the radio rights for a particular competition now you're not going to want to kill you know what you've just bought because you are diminishing the value so therefore from upstairs people say you know come on go easy on those guys

you know, we've just bought the rice for Christ's sake. This has happened to me, by the way. I'm not going to say from whom this has happened to me to be asked to tone down or not to do certain types of work because there was a direct relationship between a prospective employer and an international body. And that's something which everybody has got to deal with in the sports investigative business.

So that's the rice holders. But also, if you look at it, for example, Sky Sports who have the rights to so many things these days in England or in the UK and in other countries

so they also have a relationship with some printed media like for example it would be the Times and Sunday Times and plenty of other I know the structure of the group has changed so I'm talking here in general but in Australia

for example they do have interest and in the US of course Fox so you have vested interest there so these people are not going to go and if you've got a great story they might not open their news bulletin

with that will they and this even goes down it trickles down to even normal broad cheats for whom access to sports actors important sports actors is absolutely indispensable

so that they have stories to give to their readership. And if you publish something which is very critical of an organization like FIFA or the IOC or a particular federation or a confederation, obviously you're going to be in the bad books of that organization and next time you come to them and you say, well, I'd like to talk to so and so, I'd like you to arrange an interview with this player, blah, blah, blah. No, you won't. So, and it's a kind of compromission by association. and because it's all so tight in it and it is a microcosm

it's very difficult from stories like this unless they're huge and you can't ignore them to gain a foothold in the discourse about the sport which is something that I'm finding out or we are finding out I should say even now it's still the case you know you have a number of I mean maybe we'll talk about this later but for example I've been involved in investigation

in the links between organized crime online gambling operators and the biggest clubs on the planet and leagues in the planet and which absolutely I mean totally I really would stand by our findings they've barely been mentioned anywhere else and there's a very good reason for that is because to do so to be an echo chamber for those kind of findings would create some serious difficulties with people who are absolutely indispensable to you functioning as a media outlet.

And so Andrew found out about that. One way around it was he published books and the books were very successful and books which had a direct impact now. How many investigative journalists can say that? Not me. Well, I think, you know, it's very rare.

If it has a little impact, you think that if people talk about it, that's already great. In his particular case, it forced people to look there was the ISL scandal. I mean, we can't go too much to granular detail here. But, you know, one piece of advice, anybody who listens to us, just go Andrew Jennings' books,

look at them, read them, it's all there. And so Andrew was, in a way, on his own. And you had the type of personality, which certainly meant that it didn't hinder him or affect his willingness to approach those subjects, quite the opposite. it. But within the profession, he was admired, hugely respected. He was not an easy guy, but he was straight, and he was a phenomenal journalist. And we wouldn't be talking, I think,

today without him. I think that's how big an influence has been to all of us who work in this area. absolutely and I guess to say some things about Katai itself before we move on to some other aspects of the World Cup

in case so many of our listeners from outside of the traditional football world I mean we're talking to you America it's interesting to note that one of the title lines for FIFA that was bringing this game

to a new audience i.e. in the Gulf or they would probably say the Middle East. So Qatar is one of the world's richest nations per capita. I think this comes as no surprise to people. It's got only 310,000 citizens of a population of almost 3 million, which says quite a lot about the source of labor there. So that gives its people a GDP per head of around 112,000 US dollars, which makes them, I think they might be the third or third or third.

or richest per head behind Luxembourg and maybe some European micro-states, perhaps, or maybe they're top, I'm not sure. And it's worth mentioning that of the 24 eligible voters in the 2022 bidding process, currently 10 are either indicted, have pled guilty, or have been banned altogether from football. Of course, on a similar but separate note, set Blatter and Michel Platteny have been in hot water of their own. over various corruption charges, but there are dozens of others to speak of. The idea that FIFA is granting this game to a new audience,

when, you know, football mad nations in the Middle East like Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, almost everywhere are right there. What does that kind of say about the way that FIFA operates on a kind of public level? you know the way that they communicate this to the world? Oof. It seemed to me that they almost don't care. They play on people's apathy to some extent about this stuff. I think that, yes, there is that.

In some ways there were precursors to the age of untruth, I suppose. I think that they were themselves shocked by the decision they'd taken. I can certainly tell you that Sett Blatter was shocked because you definitely didn't want Qatar to get the World Cup you wanted. USA to get the World Cup. It was this big dream. You wanted to, FIFA, to be the great gatherer of world powers. So you would have, you know, the US and Russia and perhaps China in the future. That's the way he saw the grand project. And they took a decision which was purely based on their own personal interest. And that's that. There were reports which were

done by the technical committees of FIFA, which by the way are excellent or were excellent. And those reports, we should remind our listeners that the fact those reports, the only country for which they waved the red flag and saying we shouldn't go there was of course Qatar. And there were two reasons for that. The first reason, which is very interesting, and I really want to please remind me if I skip that point because the World Cup was moved from the summer to the winter, which is also worth talking about. But the inspection team from FIFA found out what we knew. as in the temperature there during the summer makes it impossible to play football. It's just impossible.

That's that. It's temperatures of over 40 degrees in the shade. I've tried to play football there in the summer and it is impossible, I can tell you. Well, I played once a five-a-side tournament in Egypt in June, and I will never forget it. Ever, ever, ever, ever. And it was during Ramadan as well, which means that we didn't have access to water during the game. So not an experience I would do again any

time soon. But anyway the I've lost a threat because I'm now thinking of how I was on the touchline thinking I don't want to play anymore, I don't want to play anymore. No it's they

they cared about their own interest and it's surprised them because the technical committee, this is where I wanted to go. So you'll have to edit all this out. But The technical committees of FIFA, which again are excellent, wave those red flags, the temperature was one of them. Another one was the exiguity of the Qatari territory,

which is, for an American audience the size of Connecticut. For a British audience, it would be the size of, I think, about Somerset and Cornwall put together. For a continental audience, it would be the size of even smaller than Wallonia in Belgium. So it's tiny. So the executor in itself creates a problem, which is a security problem, very, very difficult to organize security when you've got everything in such a concentrated space, as any security specialist will tell you. And it was flagged at the time as well as a danger. And so nobody thought that they stood a chance because they literally had been told, you know what, you shouldn't really be bidding for this, you're wasting your money.

But they carried on. One wonders why. and they genuinely believed they had a chance of winning it and obviously the new things we didn't know at the time but the report that was done by the technical committees of FIFA was made available to the 24 members of the executive committee plus sublata of these members of the executive committee

only one requested a copy of it the others didn't even bother reading it so there was absolutely no point they were not interested And it could be that you say, you know, that's all the same. It's just an exercise. It's just to make sure that the bidding countries at least do the hard work,

the hard yards before they give you their proposal. In a way, it's a means to make sure we've got a good tournament because they have to do their job properly. But it's a bit like those PhD thesis that nobody ever reads because they're too long, you know. But at least you've got to do it. But the guys, the jury, jury decided, no, it doesn't matter, really. Let's just vote for them. And so they did,

which is quite astonishing when you think about it. I'm still astonished now, you know, because I remember even a week before the vote took place, and people were kind of war-rooming what was going to happen. So you had your list of delegates. And you knew that, okay, some of those guys are going to vote for this particular bid, because, for example, the English guy, is going to vote for England. The Japanese guy is going to vote for Japan. You can carry on like that. Mohammed bin Hamab is a Qatari, so he's going to vote for Qatar and so on. But then what we didn't know was how the votes would evolve round by round. And what we didn't know, for example, was that UEFA, the European Confederation, their delegates would vote almost as one for Qatar. What?

How is that possible? How is that possible when the president of FIFA, Michelle Platini, had been, I would say, publicly vocal about his support for the US, but it was known, very well known that he supported the US case. It was also known that he had told the Qataris at one stage, guys, you don't stand a chance, why don't you just, you know, make way? And then suddenly, Platini votes for Qatar. So does Marius Levcaritis, the Cypriot delegate, and which is actually quite a funny story because after the event, when we tried

Eric and myself to go into who'd voted for whom, secret vote, by the way, so what we're doing here is just suggesting because nobody said who they voted for except Michel Platini. Let's at least give that to him. Actually, he owned

up, you know? Mayoroslav Caritis did as well. And so I got in touch with a Greek colleague, and I said, could you dig a little bit into Marios and anything interesting in what's happened after the vote? And my friend there, Antonis, sent me, I remember, sent me an email and he said, which was like bingo and said, have a look at that. And I saw a piece written in the local Cypriot press in which it was stated that a piece of land belonging to Marius Lief

Karetti's family had been sold to Qatar just a few months after the vote for three-time its value. And I thought, that's it. We got him. And so we published it. And amazingly enough, it wasn't taken on by anybody. I know it's the usual story. I think there was a mention by Matt Dickinson in the Times.

But I thought, this is crazy. This is really a big one for us. and Marius L'Evcaritis was actually questioned on Cypriot radio about it and his reply, I've got an audio recording of it and Johnny says, Mr. Lifcaratis, isn't that a bit strange that you should happen to sell a piece of land for an awful lot of money to the Qataris like three months after the vote and Lifkaitis said business is business

I was literally his answer so that tells you I think anything you need to know about the motivations of these people. Yeah. I'd like to add that my dissertation on Arthur Miller was wonderful if anyone wants to read that. So that was a romp, my own work of academic text. But also, I'm just thinking about how good a Somerset Cornwall World Cup would actually

be very be fantastic. Yeah, we would have to build some stadiums because unless we could use the rugby union stadiums there. But it would be interesting, let's put that way. This said, execuity, you know, I think the Dutch-Belgian bid was, was fantastic, but it's still bigger than Qatar, and all the stadiums were, you know, in place or needed to be renovated or perhaps enlarged some of them, but most of it was in place. The other thing, which is extraordinary, you have to think that Qatar, the number of people who've got a license,

people who are registered, hold a registration with the Katari Federation, There are only 7.5,000. That's not a lot. Seven and a half thousand people out of whom you're supposed to get a national team, which by FIFA rules is going to be seeded for the competition. That also didn't make sense. And people will say, oh, there is a footballing tradition in Qatar. There's a footballing tradition absolutely everywhere.

You know, I think there's a soccer tradition in Omaha probably. There's a football. That's the whole point of football. There is a tradition anywhere. But to come back to what you were saying, the fact it was presented as extraordinary for anybody who knows anything about the region or the Arab world in general, whatever the expression is worth. So it was presented like an Arab bid.

And you think, what? Are you aware of Qatar's situation in the Gulf? Are you aware of the fact that the Emirates, can't stand the Qataris, and it's reciprocal. The Saudis can't stand the Qataris either. The Egyptians are not too keen on them because of the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Qatari

the royal family, because of the links between Qatar and Iran and so on, and you carry on and think, no, no, no, no, this is crazy, this basket case. Yes, and you think in Morocco, yeah, would be great. Actually, I would love to see a World Cup in Morocco. Egypt was also, who

actually bid for the 2010 World Cup, would also be a possibility but it really made no sense. Whichever way you wanted to look at it, all the justifications you could find were after the act. They were just a means to justify the unjustifiable. So yes, of course, you're going to force the piece of the jigsaw puzzle. It's a square, but it's going to become a rectangle or a circle.

It doesn't matter. If I press hard enough, it will find its way in. And that's what they did. And that's what we keep on doing. Because we've got now a FIFA president, Jenny Infantino, who actually, by the way, has moved his home address from Zurich to Doha. That's interesting. And he's telling us it's going to be the greatest World Cup ever staged

and the greenest World Cup ever stage. Well, the greenest World Cup ever stage, there's so little accommodation in Doha. There's no room to actually get the fans in that they've organized, they've come to a special agreement with no. neighboring countries so that fans can actually take air shuttles from Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and maybe even Egypt, I can't remember, but at least those three, so that they can fly in and fly out for match days. So it's an extra 168 shuttles per day during the duration of the Greenest Ever World

Cup. It makes no bloody sense, and I'm being very polite when I'm saying that. Bonjour, compadre. It's the... Priceline negotiator. How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget. The Price Line app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle, deals,

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Price Line! This summer, serve up the cookout. Classics, Oscar Meyer hot dogs and Heinz mustard. Grill up a dog, add classic yellow mustard, or loaded Chicago style. We all know it's not a cookout without Oscar Meyer and Heinz. Yeah, I think as I was on the way to meet you today, I was re-listing to the Guardian Football weekly episodes with the Football Supposed Association heads, and he was talking about the various

accommodation setups, including cruise ships, these horrible-looking little fan village I guess that's a bit outside of our remit, but it just sounds dreadfully dull and horrible experience. Sounds rubbish. But staying in Qatar and obviously almost directly associated with those fan villages is the issue of workers' rights. From the very beginning, people would sound in the alarm about the situation in the whole GCC region where, in many cases,

I mean, I lived in the UAE for a year. migrant labour far far outstrips any locally born citizens and if you go to Dubai you go to Abu Dhabi you go to any of the major cities in the region you'll find giant workers

tent cities in the middle of nowhere where people were treated pretty appallingly and unsurprisingly building a World Cup from scratch in a country of almost no infrastructure for such a tournament that's been a real huge problem

I'll give another shout at this point to the Guardian, because a lot of their work has been fantastic. They've done a lot of video stuff that I put on the reading list that people can never look at if they want. All kinds of horror stories of workers coming from various parts of Western Central Africa or South Asia, many of them Nepali. What have you looked into there? What kind of situations have you found over the years? First of all, when we talk about the World Cup, we should think of the World Cup being not just a tournament, but a whole project which is also around the World Cup

and because what the country lacked was not just stadiums they also lacked the infrastructure to welcome the fans who would go to that World Cup that meant obviously hotels but that meant also transport links exactly which by the way bought them a lot of time

and more to be the word. A lot of time and understanding from certain Western governments because obviously Western companies were used to build those rail links, hotels, you name them. And those companies were also employing migrant workers and in fact some very famous, well-known Western companies have been treating their migrant workers

there absolutely appallingly. Now, of course, when you do some work in Qatar, it's one of those countries where you do have to have some Qatari participation in your share capital and so forth, but it doesn't matter. Western companies were also involved. Some of them are completely complicit with that. I'm thinking of Vinci.

We can name names. There's no problem about that. I think if you do a Google search about Vinci, Qatar, workers' rights, I think you'll find a few things their French company by the way Vincis and so there was

I mean the project is gigantic because we're talking about for example a whole new town which is part of Doha but it's called Lusail which is on the edge it's planned to

have something like 200,000 inhabitants in the future okay maybe yeah okay why not anyway it's been built So they brought even more migrant workers in what was already a population, which as you say is 10% natives, inverted commerce, because you can be born in Qatar and not have Qataris citizenship.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can be a third generation, Doha family. You still won't get, unless the EMEA says so himself, you will remain a foreigner with very few rights, basically. And so what the Guardian did was to expose what was happening to the migrant workers at large. Because it's always possible if you're the Qataris of FIFA to say, oh, but there were only three deaths happening on construction sites. And you will say, well, the same happened in Russia, it was 8, or in Brazil it was 14 or whatever.

And say, well, unfortunately, it happens and so forth. And, well, we can – it's already pretty disgusting to talk. like that, but the fact is that's not the point. The point is that you need railways, tram lines, whatever you call them, you know, to go to those stadiums. You need hotel rooms and so forth.

And the problem is Qatar at large and the way that it's treats its migrant workers, as it's the same as you were saying, in the UAE where it's perhaps even worse by the way than it is in Qatar. So

it was a huge issue, but at the time there was no clause in the bidding regulations drawn by FIFA to have a human rights record which would agree with FIFA's avowed vision of humanity. If that were the case, I don't think Russia would have got it for 2018 and certainly Qatar wouldn't have got it for 2022. They've put in those regulations after the event. And I'm actually looking forward to see who they give the 2030 World Cup to. And I'm also interested to see how, for example, and maybe that's straying a little bit from the subject.

But there are elements in the FIFA Charter of Human Rights, which would suggest that there are a certain number of American states, US states, where the World Cup shouldn't take place, because they use the death penalty. And, yeah, one amongst, you know, and also the, fate of migrant workers in the US is also, and Mexico, and Mexico, my goodness, is certainly worth looking at. But anyway, FIFA ignored all of that for Qatar.

And we arrived the situation where we knew that there were going to be huge human rights problems. We knew that because of the World Cup and the project that was underlying the World Cup. Some people at the time in human rights agencies raised the red flag again, very few people listened to them. We published with Frostfball a long piece about it back in February 2013, I believe. It was taken on by absolutely nobody.

And I mean nobody. Nobody better than Ilaid. And we were, you know, estimating the number of people who were being involved in the construction projects. We were talking about the dire conditions in which they were working. We were talking about Kaffala

and all these things that people suddenly have discovered like one month before the tournament starts, well guys, you know what? We were talking about it nearly 10 years ago and we were not the only ones but nobody listened and FIFA couldn't care less about it. It was not part of the narrative they wanted to sell. Yeah, I did some kind of back-of-the-napkin maths

on some of the worker deaths actually and so if reports that over 6,500 people have actually died on these construction, sites to people who are whose deaths are being reported. Right, yes. If that, if these so-called, I think some of them are sudden death syndrome or heart failure, various other ailments that they've been attributed to, if you compare that to Britain's HSE, which is its leading health and safety body, that reports a yearly death rate of 36 people in the construction industry. So if you extrapolated that, expect around 400 or so deaths over the course of the construction of these World Cup sites.

If it's 13 or 14 times that, then that tells its own story, I guess. This figure has been disputed by a number of people, starting with the Qataris, but not just with the Qataris. There are, you know, quite a few people have disputed that. But I would also point people at another study which has been done by Nick Harris of the Mail on Sunday, which hints at actually a far greater number of deaths than that. And the thing is that you will say, well, there are bound to be deaths in any community. That's true. But the thing is that this community that we're talking about is overwhelmingly male and young.

We're talking about young people here, people who are in their 20s and 30s, because they are strong enough, healthy enough, to do that kind of work. And those deaths are, you know, we've got to be absolutely clear about that. include, it's basically the deaths of within the migrant workers. I hate working, using that word, community. It's not a community. But for want of a better one, let's use it as a whole, which is colossal, which is absolutely colossal. And it would be very easy for people defending the Qatari side of the narrative to say, well, you know, you're taking in all these people who've got nothing to

do with the World Cup. And you say, well, no, but the World Cup, the interconnection is there. You cannot have one without the other. We're talking about the situation for migrant workers in Qatar. If they're there, it's for a good reason. It's because you need them to build whatever you're building, and you're building like mad.

And the reason where you're building like mad is part of a project of which the World Cup is the centerpiece. So it's connected. Come on, guys. And the thing is that this was barely reported upon until the Guardian came up with that figure, which has been criticized, which had one merit.

It drew people attention. It certainly made them wake up. And it's been used and quoted and re-quoted a number of times. And so the Guardian perhaps was a little bit sensationalist in its headlining. But I think it's one of those cases, and there are not many of them,

where selling the story, so to speak, to your readers like that, was justified because nobody was paying attention. Because as well, some of the people who had been some of the harshest critics of Qatar had turned their coat, had turned their coat. And I mean by that, the ILO... I was going to mention them, but... The ILO, who have been, I think, shameful is right.

They've become propagandists for the Qatari regime. When they were incredibly, until 2018, they were incredibly critical. And suddenly they changed their tune almost completely. And now, in fact, it goes to the point that when the Qataris are, have a question to answer about migrant workers or human rights, or migrant workers in this case, they will tell you quite happily, well, we're not to talk to the ILO. They've got people there, they've got inspectors in place, talk to them. And the same goes for the ITUC, which is supposedly the largest Labour Confederation in the world ahead of it is Sharon Burrow. I remember talking to Sharon back in 2013. She was telling me those stadiums will be built with the blood of migrant workers. And then, suddenly the same person is now saying more progress has been done in terms of human rights for migrant workers in Qatar than almost anybody else

in the history of the world. I mean, I hardly exaggerate what he's saying. So two organizations are now working hand in hand with the Qataris. I don't mind that if they're doing their job properly. But I cannot but notice that they switch their position

not a bit but 180 degrees almost from what one day to the next. And that to me is something that should be questioned. And it's a question that I would love to put to them. And I hope to get an opportunity someday because to be honest, I can't think of any reason, or rather the only reason I can think of is not something I can talk to you about now. Yeah, it's pretty shocking, actually, how these labour organisations have just done an about turn. Actually, there was some great work by Simendra Kunze.

in Yostama as well recently about construction firm, one particular construction firm that was blackmailing its workers to the tune of $1,200 to switch employers, which according to Qatar's own so-called laws that they'd enacted two years ago, that's illegal even by Qatar standards now. So whatever's being said out loud isn't being enforced and what's not being enforced is causing more deaths.

And, I mean, $1,200 is an astronomical sum of money for people who are earning maybe two or three hundred a month? Well, if they're on the minimum wage, it's less than that. If they're on the minimum wage, that would be about five to six months of their work. So, yes, that is absolutely shocking. And Sammy, by the way, has been to Qatar probably more often than any journalist than I know. And his reporting has been absolutely top-notch on this. but the problem, one of the major problems with Qatar addressing it,

and I'll try to be as nuanced as I possibly can be, that I do not deny, and I'm absolutely, actually I'm sure that within Qatar, there are people who genuinely would like to see reform happen, genuinely, particularly amongst the women. and who would be very happy for these paper reforms to actually be implemented. But the huge problem is implementation. It's the same problem with FIFA. FIFA has got an arsenal of regulations and statuses,

which are absolutely wonderful if they were to be implemented properly. But they are not. It's paying lip service. So what you're doing is that you're just giving to your critics. You're saying, oh, look, we've done this, we've done that. Well, yes, you've signed a piece of paper, you've written the text, but this text is not applied. What's the point about it?

We have to judge on what's happening on the ground, and what's happening on the ground has got nothing to do with what you're saying. The fact that, you know, some workers, for example, at the moment there is another shocking thing which is happening, is that workers being kicked out. Yeah, just before window dressing, like kicking out undesirables, essentially. And making room. and making room for visitors and tourists.

I've even heard of Katari families who were kicked out of their own homes, which they had been renting for a while so that the landlord could rent it to visitors at a huge price during the World Cup. What happens afterwards is anybody's guess. Because an important thing, and I think I need to say that,

is that in some countries, some GCC countries, popular assent is gained by giving people money. As in everybody who is born Qatari or a born Emirati or born Saudi is somebody who is going to have free healthcare, free education, free this, free this, free this, free that,

guaranteed income. It's not the case in Qatar. Not many people know that. It's not the case in Qatar. In Qatar, you've got royal family and a few families which are linked to the royal family. These people are wealthy beyond your wildest imagination.

Then you've got a middle class and then you've got a lower middle class. You don't really have a working class as such because the working class is the migrant workers, but you have a lower middle class. People who do not have this help and who are not that wealthy. So it really is, it's so tiny.

We're talking about a few thousand people who basically control absolutely everything. And of course, they're absolutely shit scared of losing that control. So therefore, what do you do? It's a police state. It's a surveillance state. And using methods that, to be honest, are so objectionable

and objectionable to their own citizens because we should never, there is always a tendency or an impulse, perhaps, to treat all of Qatar as the oppressor and then the migrant workers as the oppressed. You have to see that in Qatar, the oppressed include a large part of the Qatari population. I think it's something which was worth reminding people of. Yeah, certainly.

And that's a kind of false-foucels. that the Qatari committee is also used against critical journalism, right? There's some form of racism or anti-Katari bigotry that's against the various things,

obviously, you know, smoke screens. But, yeah, we did an episode of the pod recently about people who are being human trafficked into work in Cambodia, various cyber scam operations. The definition of the human trafficking

absolutely applies to many of the situations going on in Qatar. Organised crime definitely could be applied to this. And I guess to finish this part of our discussion, can you see any optimism? I mean, you say, I think your Twitter handled to paraphrases, was it I'd hate football if I didn't love it. Yeah, a little bit more expletive, yeah. Maybe right for a few hours' time in this pub, but...

Not frightening. Yeah. What are you... Are you going to watch it? Are you going to... What's going to happen? Yeah, I'm going to watch it. I've been thinking about it.

I mean, I've been thinking about it for a very long time and perhaps for longer than most of my colleagues, because I've been involved in that story almost from the very beginning. I'm going to watch it. I'm going to report on it. And I am reporting on it right now. But I do think that it's totally possible to do this and be, because I know there are a few people who are quite fundamentalist about it,

saying I'm not going to watch it, I am not going to even report on it, I'm going to live my life as if it was not happening. Well, I think, no, no, no, you should live your life as if it were happening because it's bloody happening and it's important to report on it. That means that I might talk about some of the football. And is it a kind of cognitive. dissent? I don't think so. It's more...

And the reason why I say that is because I'm old enough to remember Argentina 1978. Now, the World Cup was given to Argentina when at the helm

was a dictatorship that makes the alternative royal family look like great Democrats. There were serial murderers responsible directly for the summary execution, torture of tens of thousands of people in Argentina. A World Cup took place. Argentina won it in controversial circumstances, let me be it that way. Now, my point would be, A, there was a real debate about going to Argentina

at the time, and a proper debate, which involved actually some national team coaches and players. In case of France, Michel Eidalgo, our national team manager, Domini Groshteau, one of our star players, talked openly about it, the problem that it was giving them, but they said, no, we're going to do it. And one of the reasons they say We shouldn't get these guys win Because if you don't go you don't talk about it In a way you let them win I think you're actually quite right there

And it's a bit like Leaving Richard Wagner to the anti-Semites That's not helping That's not helpful at all It's far more helpful to cover What's going on there And using the football As a means to do that

And also the other thing I'm thinking. Did the World Cup in Argentina 1978, which Argentina won, and Qatar certainly won't win 2022 World Cup? Did it in any way prop up the Argentinian regime?

It had the opposite effect. And in fact, what's happening with Qatar, which is one of the reasons where I've got a big problem with people saying that Qatar is in it for the soft power, they're not. Or reputation building, they're not. It's got nothing to do with that. Because what's happened to their reputation is awful. Getting the World Cup has been the worst own goal in terms of image and reputation that I can

think of. Their aim is different. Their aim is to establish and to guarantee national security, which is completely different, to make sure that Qatar is known of, that Qatar is a voice that is listened to, that it's an important voice in the concert of nations, you know, name it as you wish, and they will take a lot of criticism. They're not too happy about it. Many people are not happy about it. And in fact, some Qataris were objected to the World Cup precisely because of that. But they will gain, they have got that presence now. When people talk about Qatar, we know what we're talking. Well, we think we know what we're talking about.

And not reporting on that and taking this kind of holier than thou, righteous point of view, I think would be quite hypocritical in a way. It's a bit too easy as well. there's no reason why you can't say oh that was a lovely goal by Stadio Manet and point out the fact oh look at the stadium it's empty or look at the stadium oh who are these people coming from

they've been busting or telling on you know you know explaining precisely oh these fans you know what they've been taken in by you know a jet from a man this morning you can do both I think there was a good example I was told it was exemplary actually

of what NBC did with the Olympic Games in China. As I've been told by American friends, they said they didn't miss one chance of telling the truth. And they still covered the competition, but they found the right balance. And also, I do not want to fall

in this appalling, and I have to say, Western-centered point of view of Qatar and the Arab and the Muslim world in general. I want no part of, and that's really not, I'm really not into that. Actually, I absolutely hate it.

So be fair, the same way, we went to Russia, four years after their next Crimea. We went to Russia after what they did in Chechnya, right? And did anybody at the time say, oh, we shouldn't go to Russia? Very few people did. I mean, and Putin's regime is 100 times it's more evil than the Altanis. 100 times. So I find it a bit hypocritical and I'm probably

going to get flag for that because if I report on it, which I intend to do people say, well, why are you talking about, I don't know, Antoine Grisman not being in the starting 11th? I don't want them to win. It's

it's, if you are totally, if the voices which matter in terms of showing, shedding light on what's going on, are kept silent. What are you going to achieve with that? Nothing. Zilch.

You're going to erase yourself from the narrative, from the script. For no other reason than to feel good about yourself, that's rubbish. It's a bit like people, and apologies for that, some people won't like that. It's people from the LGBTQI-plus community in the West who are going there, who want to go there,

and wave rainbow flags in the stadiums. Nobheads, you don't risk anything. What you risk is being arrested, being put on the flight, that's it. End of story. For the people who are gay, trans in Qatar, what you're going to do is going to be the worst possible thing. And I know that because I do work on that subject, you know, a lot. And that's the message I'm getting from every single one of my Qatari friends.

So I think I'd rather take my cue from them. than from the people who are selling values in the Western world. Well, that's a good note to end this part of our discussion. No, absolutely. And I'm glad you went there because I wanted to mention LGBTQI plus issues. I mean, obviously, one should when mentioning the World Cup. But I think similar to some stuff that we've covered, even with the war in Ukraine, which Danny, my co-host has been covering,

There's a lot of virtue signaling outside of the country and a big dearth of people actually speaking to folks who are in that place. And I think that's really important. We'll take a quick break. We'll get a pint. And then we'll talk about some other crypto gangsters maybe. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. fit for your ambition for citizens back.

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